Finally, the Republican campaign to ferret out voter fraud in Indiana has struck pay dirt.
After claiming that voter fraud is a potentially huge problem necessitating "poll-tax-lite" in the form of photo IDs backed up by sometimes difficult-to-produce: birth records (the elderly, immigrants), residency records (college students). Then for those with no family available to provide transportation, and for those 85+ year old computer savvies who just wander through the maze of possibilities of the many ways one can exercise his or her Constitutional right to vote by linking here. After clearing all these hurdles and jumping through all these hoops, some may be able to exercise a right they may have fought for in foreign wars, or their fathers may have fought for, or their creator may have endowed to them as inalienable rights as one who sits atop the soil of the United States of America.
And now, finally the net has dragged in a fish. A White fish it seems. A fish named Charlie, to be exact. That fish happens to be the supreme arbiter of election laws in the state of Indiana.
Congratulations to Vop Osili the new and legal Secretary of State for the State of Indiana. He takes that post after a judge rules the Fish Named Charlie ineligible to serve.
CORRECTION & UPDATE
I was incorrect in saying that Vop Osili "takes that post" (Secretary of State).
Although ruled ineligible to hold the position by a judge, White is vowing to stay in office. A recent article is linkied here.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The Little Bridge That Could ('ve)
The Horseshoe Foundation has offered an incentive of one million dollars to get the Sherman Minton Bridge open earlier. While the community spirit of this organization is well-known and welcome, I can't help but wonder what could have been a better use of this benevolence.
Since the bridge closed in September, what if that noteworthy sum had been committed to a timely reopening of the K & I Bridge? A minor, but vital, link between New Albany and Louisville would have been re-established. Access for cross-river workers may have been eased a tiny bit. Off hour traffic would have been a snap. (Direct travel to the Horseshoe Casino would have been easy, as would the directions--get off the bridge, turn left, stop at the boat.)
But now, as the imminent reopening of the Sherman Minton approaches, the renewed K & I would settle back into a pattern of reduced relevance for workers and gamblers, yet the bridge would remain. We could soon be engaged in a productive discussion of how best to incorporate The Little Bridge That Could've into a soon-to-be-unveiled Greenway and,how best to utilize that structure as a link for bike and pedestrian traffic across the river.
Those primary uses of the bridge would not preclude the use of the bridge as a steam valve to let off some of the congestion caused by a bridge closure in the future. It would also serve as a link to life saving emergency services if another bridge were blocked or closed.
Apparently, the value of having the Shermn Minton open about 25 days earlier is worth about $40,000 per day to the casino. Once the gamblers have replenished the coffers, perhaps the Horseshoe Foundation would see fit to throw about a month's worth of that forty Gs a day toward a revitalized K & I bridge. All the current incentive is buying now is some time, but a renewed K & I would be a real and lasting benefit to the community.
Since the bridge closed in September, what if that noteworthy sum had been committed to a timely reopening of the K & I Bridge? A minor, but vital, link between New Albany and Louisville would have been re-established. Access for cross-river workers may have been eased a tiny bit. Off hour traffic would have been a snap. (Direct travel to the Horseshoe Casino would have been easy, as would the directions--get off the bridge, turn left, stop at the boat.)
But now, as the imminent reopening of the Sherman Minton approaches, the renewed K & I would settle back into a pattern of reduced relevance for workers and gamblers, yet the bridge would remain. We could soon be engaged in a productive discussion of how best to incorporate The Little Bridge That Could've into a soon-to-be-unveiled Greenway and,how best to utilize that structure as a link for bike and pedestrian traffic across the river.
Those primary uses of the bridge would not preclude the use of the bridge as a steam valve to let off some of the congestion caused by a bridge closure in the future. It would also serve as a link to life saving emergency services if another bridge were blocked or closed.
Apparently, the value of having the Shermn Minton open about 25 days earlier is worth about $40,000 per day to the casino. Once the gamblers have replenished the coffers, perhaps the Horseshoe Foundation would see fit to throw about a month's worth of that forty Gs a day toward a revitalized K & I bridge. All the current incentive is buying now is some time, but a renewed K & I would be a real and lasting benefit to the community.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Here and Now
The euphoria of Black Friday has ebbed now. The business channel, CNBC, was aflutter with breathless comment on the resilience of the American Consumer. The widely reported incident of a crazed shopper, gone mad with the prospect of deals, deals, deals, pepper spraying her way to savings, is now part of Black Friday lore. Perhaps next year we can look forward to more ingenious and devious means to get through the door of a mega-retailer-of-choice sooner than others. Where does one buy a bazooka? And could shrapnel and flying debris possibly damage some objects of desire?
Of more local and immediate concern, we face this Christmas season with the possibility of buying more locally produced items than last year. This is a trend which seems to be building here and across the United States. While the sales figures for Black Friday were large and noteworthy; was the real economic impact felt more by American retail workers, or by the owners of Oriental sweatshops,(many with American nicknames, such as Zenith, Levi's, Apple or Dell), producing electronics, clothing, gadgets, and, in short, most of the goods formerly produced by our fellow citizens? To be sure, the sales of these foreign-made goods dwarfs the locally-produced items. And yet, it is significant that so many entrepreneurs are deciding to stand their ground here and now, and make something here and now, and make something of here and now.
New Albany's entrepreneurial class is more vital and exciting, and more inspiring of hope than in any time in my memory. Recently, an organization eponymously dedicated to promoting New Albany first, came before the City Council and asked for money to get aloft. Although the funding request was postponed, and the group's ascent slowed, I would hope this and other worthwhile efforts pushing localism and entrepreneurialism are not abandoned.
Those engaged in the building of local businesses, especially those selling locally produced goods, are leading a revolution in American business. Inch by inch they are about rebuilding the infrastructure of a vital, functional, and sustainable economy. And, I hope, replacing elements of a failed economy laid low by a philosophy of extraction. The U.S. is seen by global master merchants as a pool of insatiable buying power, to be exploited for its ability to soak up ever more foreign-made goods, cheap on the shelf, but rich in profit to low-wage foreign producers. Since 2011 wages in the U.S. have fallen to a level lower, in real terms, than those of 1974, the so-called American Consumer is forced to graze in the fields of cheap foreign-made products because that is all many of us can afford.
New Albany owes much to those who are actively engaged in reshaping our local economy through the local production of goods, and to those independently offering goods and services, such businesses build a strong foundation for our economy. We owe it to them to support their efforts and to help those who would promote their efforts. The Kia girl on TV talks of the "new economy". The new economy is local, and in that direction lies the new prosperity. It's not just about the money.
Of more local and immediate concern, we face this Christmas season with the possibility of buying more locally produced items than last year. This is a trend which seems to be building here and across the United States. While the sales figures for Black Friday were large and noteworthy; was the real economic impact felt more by American retail workers, or by the owners of Oriental sweatshops,(many with American nicknames, such as Zenith, Levi's, Apple or Dell), producing electronics, clothing, gadgets, and, in short, most of the goods formerly produced by our fellow citizens? To be sure, the sales of these foreign-made goods dwarfs the locally-produced items. And yet, it is significant that so many entrepreneurs are deciding to stand their ground here and now, and make something here and now, and make something of here and now.
New Albany's entrepreneurial class is more vital and exciting, and more inspiring of hope than in any time in my memory. Recently, an organization eponymously dedicated to promoting New Albany first, came before the City Council and asked for money to get aloft. Although the funding request was postponed, and the group's ascent slowed, I would hope this and other worthwhile efforts pushing localism and entrepreneurialism are not abandoned.
Those engaged in the building of local businesses, especially those selling locally produced goods, are leading a revolution in American business. Inch by inch they are about rebuilding the infrastructure of a vital, functional, and sustainable economy. And, I hope, replacing elements of a failed economy laid low by a philosophy of extraction. The U.S. is seen by global master merchants as a pool of insatiable buying power, to be exploited for its ability to soak up ever more foreign-made goods, cheap on the shelf, but rich in profit to low-wage foreign producers. Since 2011 wages in the U.S. have fallen to a level lower, in real terms, than those of 1974, the so-called American Consumer is forced to graze in the fields of cheap foreign-made products because that is all many of us can afford.
New Albany owes much to those who are actively engaged in reshaping our local economy through the local production of goods, and to those independently offering goods and services, such businesses build a strong foundation for our economy. We owe it to them to support their efforts and to help those who would promote their efforts. The Kia girl on TV talks of the "new economy". The new economy is local, and in that direction lies the new prosperity. It's not just about the money.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Drive On
Johnny Cash took the phrase "drive on" from reading he had done about the war in Vietnam. He said the phrase was spoken, sometimes in agony, by soldiers wounded in battle who would minimize the severity of their wounds, in the hope of saving their buddies from injury, and tell the unhurt ones to watch out for their own safety, to just "drive on".
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Election 2011
Thanks to all who voted for me. I'm gratified and humbled by the support I received.
I'm spent for today but I'll be back soon with more thoughts on how I hope we can work for a better city.
I'm always open to your thoughts and concerns, and hope to hear from you.
I'm spent for today but I'll be back soon with more thoughts on how I hope we can work for a better city.
I'm always open to your thoughts and concerns, and hope to hear from you.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Nudge List--Points to Local Business
The post to which this refers was originally written on September 20, 2011. It lists a number of goals I want to nudge the next mayor into pursuing. This focuses on one of those. The original can be viewed by scrolling down to September 20, 2011.
As the campaign comes to a close, I see that I will not get through the Nudge List drawn up in September, by November 8. Here's one that will make it before the deadline: Point system for local producers and vendors.
The notion of a point system to favor local producers and vendors is one of the easiest steps we can take to revive and strengthen the local economy. As is no surprise, local governmment is a large buyer of goods and services. It is foolhardy to simply take the lowest price for such purchases without considering the multiplier effect those purchases can have on the local economy. In fairness to those who purchase goods and services for the City, many of those purchases are made through local producers and vendors.
However, I recall vividly an incident which occurred shortly before I joined the City Council. The proprietor of the dive shop on State Street had been bypassed when the fire department needed the type of equipment he sells. Someone from the fire department called and got prices from the shop, but didn't identify themself as being from the fire department. Maybe if the fireman had identified himself as a fireman, he would have been offered special pricing. Apparently he didn't do so, and so the business was given somewhere in Louisville and a tiny bit of money leaked out of our local economy.
That may not be a particularly on-point example of how the local economy is disadvantaged through governmental purchasing misses, but we can still do better in structuring a framework that bouys local producers and vendors.
Local shops, producers, and vendors are the heart of our local econnomy. The new mayor should pursue a policy of awarding prefence points to these businesses. I have obtained prices from large national retailers that are as low or lower than the local retailer pays at the wholesale level. That type of pricing makes it difficult to sustain the elements of a local economy against such stiff (possibly predatory) pricing power.
The rationale, and value, of establishing a formula or framework to give locals a preferred position is that, because of past experiences, some local vendors may have given up on participating in government sales. Some may recognize that their wholesale price would not be competitive in a one-on-one matchup with a national chain, so they don't even try to sell to local government. But local government has an obligation to take the extra steps to ensure that local businesses are favored over national chains, if the product or service meets the city's needs.
One method could be a point system by which locally-produced goods - or items produced elsewhere but sold by local vendors - have a rating to put them on a more even level. Back to the dive shop example. Perhaps the equipment needed was available for $2,500 in Louisville but the local vendor needed $2,800 to cover his costs and make a profit. Using a point system formula that would give a slight advantage to the local vendor could have put his equipment just a few dollars away from the Louisville price. The dive shop owner could then have taken advantage of the incentive and come off his price slightly to win the business - and possibly a longer term relationship. He is a winner in this situation, but so are the citizens of New Albany who benefit from a prosperous local economy, which builds a vital functional, and sustainable city able to attract and maintain other local businesses.
I hope the Mayor is on board with this concept and is willing to work with the Council to make it happen. I'll be nudging him to do so if I'm fortunate enough to win another term on Tuesday.
As the campaign comes to a close, I see that I will not get through the Nudge List drawn up in September, by November 8. Here's one that will make it before the deadline: Point system for local producers and vendors.
The notion of a point system to favor local producers and vendors is one of the easiest steps we can take to revive and strengthen the local economy. As is no surprise, local governmment is a large buyer of goods and services. It is foolhardy to simply take the lowest price for such purchases without considering the multiplier effect those purchases can have on the local economy. In fairness to those who purchase goods and services for the City, many of those purchases are made through local producers and vendors.
However, I recall vividly an incident which occurred shortly before I joined the City Council. The proprietor of the dive shop on State Street had been bypassed when the fire department needed the type of equipment he sells. Someone from the fire department called and got prices from the shop, but didn't identify themself as being from the fire department. Maybe if the fireman had identified himself as a fireman, he would have been offered special pricing. Apparently he didn't do so, and so the business was given somewhere in Louisville and a tiny bit of money leaked out of our local economy.
That may not be a particularly on-point example of how the local economy is disadvantaged through governmental purchasing misses, but we can still do better in structuring a framework that bouys local producers and vendors.
Local shops, producers, and vendors are the heart of our local econnomy. The new mayor should pursue a policy of awarding prefence points to these businesses. I have obtained prices from large national retailers that are as low or lower than the local retailer pays at the wholesale level. That type of pricing makes it difficult to sustain the elements of a local economy against such stiff (possibly predatory) pricing power.
The rationale, and value, of establishing a formula or framework to give locals a preferred position is that, because of past experiences, some local vendors may have given up on participating in government sales. Some may recognize that their wholesale price would not be competitive in a one-on-one matchup with a national chain, so they don't even try to sell to local government. But local government has an obligation to take the extra steps to ensure that local businesses are favored over national chains, if the product or service meets the city's needs.
One method could be a point system by which locally-produced goods - or items produced elsewhere but sold by local vendors - have a rating to put them on a more even level. Back to the dive shop example. Perhaps the equipment needed was available for $2,500 in Louisville but the local vendor needed $2,800 to cover his costs and make a profit. Using a point system formula that would give a slight advantage to the local vendor could have put his equipment just a few dollars away from the Louisville price. The dive shop owner could then have taken advantage of the incentive and come off his price slightly to win the business - and possibly a longer term relationship. He is a winner in this situation, but so are the citizens of New Albany who benefit from a prosperous local economy, which builds a vital functional, and sustainable city able to attract and maintain other local businesses.
I hope the Mayor is on board with this concept and is willing to work with the Council to make it happen. I'll be nudging him to do so if I'm fortunate enough to win another term on Tuesday.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Hat Trick on the Nudge List
The post to which this refers was originally was written on September 20, 2011. It lists a number of goals I want to nudge the next mayor into pursuing. This focuses on three of those. The original can be viewed by scrolling down to September 20, 2011.
On one of the first cool Saturdays of fall we walked to the farmer's market from our house on Captain Frank Road. On the way to the market we walked along State Street after turning from Captain Frank. The return trip was State to Cherry, then through the graveyard on West Street.
Of striking note was the high number of vacant houses on Cherry Street. Cherry is a relatively short street of something less than a full mile. In that short stretch, we counted six or seven vacant houses, comprising as much as one third of the entire street's houses. Some were in poor condition, most were simply vacant.
At the intersection of Cherry and State Streets is a ponding area for the inconvenient, and seasonal, collection of excessive rain. It also claims the hosting of a billboard as one of its purposes. This forlorn acreage, though highly visible from one of our main thoroughfares, State Street, is usually in an unkempt state of overgrowth and seeming abandonment. It is bounded by State Street, Cherry Street, PC Building Materials, and Falling Run Creek.
A missing line on the list of amenities to be found in New Albany is a dog park. Such a place allows citizens with dogs the privilege of exercising their pets off-leash in a protected, confined, and legal, area. Louisville has several such parks, and they are provided in many cities across the U.S.. For people with dogs nothing compares with the reward your pet realizes from an unfettered run to burn off energy and get the exercise he needs.
One boundary of the ponding area is Falling Run Creek. This stream runs through much of New Albany, but makes one of its most impressive showings as it passes near and through the downtown.
That these three features and challenges come together near the intersection of State and Cherry Streets allows this area to become a transformational neighborhood in New Albany's revival. That is why a strong case can be made to focus the next Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) on Cherry Street. While this street is vulnerable to the same real estate troubles affecting other parts of the city, it is extremely well positioned to come out of that downward spiral if the proper combination of attention and money are deployed on its behalf. If such attention is not paid to this area I fear it could reach a tipping point from which it may not recover. And yet, because Cherry Street is short,and strategically located it is a feasible candidate for a new NSP strategy.
Pursuing a dog park at the intersection would remove a blighted, neglected area and replace it with a welcome amenity for only a small up-front expense. All that is needed is the installation of a fence along the perimeter and another fence within to separate small dogs from large ones. The space even has a serviceable road in place which can be brought up to usable condition with a few loads of gravel. The ongoing expense of maintaining the park should be offset with a nominal user/membership fee collected from those who wish to exercise their pets there.
Once the ponding area finds new life as a dog park, it will naturally open up the area to Falling Run Creek, which acts as the southern border of the proposed park. This stream could then be reclaimed for our citizenry as a narrow park dissecting much of the city. This park could be a walking/jogging/biking path through large areas of the city. The advantages of this park would be primarily realized by those who avail themselves of a convenient, low-traffic path for exercise and destinational biking and walking. But, Falling Run is also a critical element of storm water drainage, and renewed access to, and use of, the stream would naturally lead to keeping it cleaner for this important task.
Few areas of the city offer the prospect of turning so quickly from a position of peril to a position of desirability. Cherry Street straddles the downtown area while also offering easy access to the major commercial area of State Street near I-265. The housing stock is varied in size and style. Vacant houses appear to be in decent shape and could be made more appealing to buyers.
I hope to be in a position to help the next mayor see the need and value of focusing on Cherry Street, with its dog park along Falling Run.
On one of the first cool Saturdays of fall we walked to the farmer's market from our house on Captain Frank Road. On the way to the market we walked along State Street after turning from Captain Frank. The return trip was State to Cherry, then through the graveyard on West Street.
Of striking note was the high number of vacant houses on Cherry Street. Cherry is a relatively short street of something less than a full mile. In that short stretch, we counted six or seven vacant houses, comprising as much as one third of the entire street's houses. Some were in poor condition, most were simply vacant.
At the intersection of Cherry and State Streets is a ponding area for the inconvenient, and seasonal, collection of excessive rain. It also claims the hosting of a billboard as one of its purposes. This forlorn acreage, though highly visible from one of our main thoroughfares, State Street, is usually in an unkempt state of overgrowth and seeming abandonment. It is bounded by State Street, Cherry Street, PC Building Materials, and Falling Run Creek.
A missing line on the list of amenities to be found in New Albany is a dog park. Such a place allows citizens with dogs the privilege of exercising their pets off-leash in a protected, confined, and legal, area. Louisville has several such parks, and they are provided in many cities across the U.S.. For people with dogs nothing compares with the reward your pet realizes from an unfettered run to burn off energy and get the exercise he needs.
One boundary of the ponding area is Falling Run Creek. This stream runs through much of New Albany, but makes one of its most impressive showings as it passes near and through the downtown.
That these three features and challenges come together near the intersection of State and Cherry Streets allows this area to become a transformational neighborhood in New Albany's revival. That is why a strong case can be made to focus the next Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) on Cherry Street. While this street is vulnerable to the same real estate troubles affecting other parts of the city, it is extremely well positioned to come out of that downward spiral if the proper combination of attention and money are deployed on its behalf. If such attention is not paid to this area I fear it could reach a tipping point from which it may not recover. And yet, because Cherry Street is short,and strategically located it is a feasible candidate for a new NSP strategy.
Pursuing a dog park at the intersection would remove a blighted, neglected area and replace it with a welcome amenity for only a small up-front expense. All that is needed is the installation of a fence along the perimeter and another fence within to separate small dogs from large ones. The space even has a serviceable road in place which can be brought up to usable condition with a few loads of gravel. The ongoing expense of maintaining the park should be offset with a nominal user/membership fee collected from those who wish to exercise their pets there.
Once the ponding area finds new life as a dog park, it will naturally open up the area to Falling Run Creek, which acts as the southern border of the proposed park. This stream could then be reclaimed for our citizenry as a narrow park dissecting much of the city. This park could be a walking/jogging/biking path through large areas of the city. The advantages of this park would be primarily realized by those who avail themselves of a convenient, low-traffic path for exercise and destinational biking and walking. But, Falling Run is also a critical element of storm water drainage, and renewed access to, and use of, the stream would naturally lead to keeping it cleaner for this important task.
Few areas of the city offer the prospect of turning so quickly from a position of peril to a position of desirability. Cherry Street straddles the downtown area while also offering easy access to the major commercial area of State Street near I-265. The housing stock is varied in size and style. Vacant houses appear to be in decent shape and could be made more appealing to buyers.
I hope to be in a position to help the next mayor see the need and value of focusing on Cherry Street, with its dog park along Falling Run.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Nudge List--Brick Streets
Below are a couple of posts which appeared here earlier addressing the uncovering of brick streets.
While this may seem retrograde, I think of it as something we can do now which has at least a dual benefit. One benefit is saving money on paving. Another, if done properly, is using this hidden asset to highlight and define historic areas of the city. Actually, it should have more benefits than just these two, but we'll never know if we don't try. Alleys, which I didn't focus on in the two links, might be an easier place to start; they are in generally worse shape than streets, and they don't seem to have as many utility patches.
Hit the Bricks
Whetting Your Appetite
While this may seem retrograde, I think of it as something we can do now which has at least a dual benefit. One benefit is saving money on paving. Another, if done properly, is using this hidden asset to highlight and define historic areas of the city. Actually, it should have more benefits than just these two, but we'll never know if we don't try. Alleys, which I didn't focus on in the two links, might be an easier place to start; they are in generally worse shape than streets, and they don't seem to have as many utility patches.
Hit the Bricks
Whetting Your Appetite
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Got Milk?
I had occasion to be near Sixth and Jefferson Streets yesterday. This is one venue of the Louisville version of Occupy Wall Street.
I stopped by to see if anything was happening. A crowd of around 20-30 people were milling around some picnic tables, and some of these people were engaged in a General Assembly in which decisions about policy are made in an open forum. I was not close enough to hear what the particular issue was, and I was only catching the tail end of the process.
I did hear one man say he wanted to discuss Christopher Columbus, at which time I left to feed the parking meter. When I returned, he was, in fact, conducting a discussion about Columbus and the ill-effects his "discovery" had on the inhabitants of the New World.
While driving to Louisville I heard on the radio dismissive talk of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, primarily in New York, but a few other cities were singled out for criticism. The common refrain was "what do these people want?" The idea being that this protest or gathering is delegitimized because it has not produced a coherent manifesto of its purpose and intentions. It has not even endorsed a presidential campaign yet. And I feel fairly certain it has not lined up corporate sponsorships with any companies engaged in the sale of camping gear.
That criticism is unfair.
This movement is kind of like a cake being baked. At the moment the ingredients are being laid out on the table. Since it is being baked by loose knit "committees", some want chocolate, some want lemon, some want nuts, it is entirely too early to pass judgment on the cake's eventual value to and acceptance by the political diners who will behold it when it emerges from the oven.
Personally, I'm intrigued by the process. I am hopeful for meaningful results. (I'd like to see public financing of elections, the abandonment of the legal fiction of corporate personhood, a return to meaningful financial rules including the Glass Steagall Act, and a fair apportionment of tax burdens--that will do for starters)
And, I am grateful for the trouble these patriotic people are taking on our nation's behalf.
I anxiously await the cake's removal from the oven, because then it's time for the icing.
I stopped by to see if anything was happening. A crowd of around 20-30 people were milling around some picnic tables, and some of these people were engaged in a General Assembly in which decisions about policy are made in an open forum. I was not close enough to hear what the particular issue was, and I was only catching the tail end of the process.
I did hear one man say he wanted to discuss Christopher Columbus, at which time I left to feed the parking meter. When I returned, he was, in fact, conducting a discussion about Columbus and the ill-effects his "discovery" had on the inhabitants of the New World.
While driving to Louisville I heard on the radio dismissive talk of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon, primarily in New York, but a few other cities were singled out for criticism. The common refrain was "what do these people want?" The idea being that this protest or gathering is delegitimized because it has not produced a coherent manifesto of its purpose and intentions. It has not even endorsed a presidential campaign yet. And I feel fairly certain it has not lined up corporate sponsorships with any companies engaged in the sale of camping gear.
That criticism is unfair.
This movement is kind of like a cake being baked. At the moment the ingredients are being laid out on the table. Since it is being baked by loose knit "committees", some want chocolate, some want lemon, some want nuts, it is entirely too early to pass judgment on the cake's eventual value to and acceptance by the political diners who will behold it when it emerges from the oven.
Personally, I'm intrigued by the process. I am hopeful for meaningful results. (I'd like to see public financing of elections, the abandonment of the legal fiction of corporate personhood, a return to meaningful financial rules including the Glass Steagall Act, and a fair apportionment of tax burdens--that will do for starters)
And, I am grateful for the trouble these patriotic people are taking on our nation's behalf.
I anxiously await the cake's removal from the oven, because then it's time for the icing.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Nudge List--K & I Bridge
With the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge, many have suggested that the K & I Bridge be re-opened to pick up some of the slack left by the main bridge's closing. I am encouraged by correspondence and the resulting conversation with representatives of the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the owners of the K & I.
I have used that bridge often when it was open to the public. I have ridden across it often on a bicycle as well. The latter conveyance provides a particularly exhilarating sensation. Since the deck is made of steel grates one can see through, as one speeds up on a bike, the deck visually disappears, giving the sensation of flying above the river. I digress. The point is, I have a history of riding across that bridge both in cars, buses, and on bikes. And this history has caused me to miss an important point about the bridge's utility as a regular full-service bridge.
When the bridge was open to regular public use the train tracks approached and entered the bridge more or less as a continuation of Vincennes Street, so car traffic ran parallel with the train tracks. As I looked at the bridge yesterday, up close, it dawned on me that the west traffic lane of the bridge is not likely usable because it is now dissected by the railroad tracks. Both days I've gone to look at the bridge, it has had a train parked across that lane. The bridge might be used by the railroad as a kind of staging area where the trains are held until the tracks open up farther down the line. Even if the railroad would quit using the tracks for such a purpose, if indeed that is how they are used, the automobile approach to the west lane of the bridge would require extensive rebuilding and paving.
The paving is an investment I think should be made.We have seen with the closing of the Sherman Minton that the city and the region is negatively affected by disruptions to bridge traffic. It just makes sense to have a backup.
The most encouraging discussion with railroad officials relative to our current situation revolved around using the bridge for ambulances and medical personnel. Passage over the bridge would require meeting an on-site railroad worker who would open locked gates. This would address one of the most perilous eventualities of the current bridge closing. I am hopeful the Norfolk Southern will make its determination quickly on this matter.
The other encouraging thing to come out of the discussion is the apparent willingness to look at further use of the bridge after the current mess is sorted out. Many have longed to have the bridge open as a link between Louisville's River Walk and Southern Indiana's Greenway. I am more confident now that the small steps we make during the current situation can lead to wider use of the K & I in the future. Since the bridge is a private structure it will be up to City officials to work with Norfolk Southern personnel to work out a plan for pedestrian/bike use of the bridge, and also to put in place a permanent plan for emergency use even after the current problem with the Sherman Minton is solved.
I have used that bridge often when it was open to the public. I have ridden across it often on a bicycle as well. The latter conveyance provides a particularly exhilarating sensation. Since the deck is made of steel grates one can see through, as one speeds up on a bike, the deck visually disappears, giving the sensation of flying above the river. I digress. The point is, I have a history of riding across that bridge both in cars, buses, and on bikes. And this history has caused me to miss an important point about the bridge's utility as a regular full-service bridge.
When the bridge was open to regular public use the train tracks approached and entered the bridge more or less as a continuation of Vincennes Street, so car traffic ran parallel with the train tracks. As I looked at the bridge yesterday, up close, it dawned on me that the west traffic lane of the bridge is not likely usable because it is now dissected by the railroad tracks. Both days I've gone to look at the bridge, it has had a train parked across that lane. The bridge might be used by the railroad as a kind of staging area where the trains are held until the tracks open up farther down the line. Even if the railroad would quit using the tracks for such a purpose, if indeed that is how they are used, the automobile approach to the west lane of the bridge would require extensive rebuilding and paving.
The paving is an investment I think should be made.We have seen with the closing of the Sherman Minton that the city and the region is negatively affected by disruptions to bridge traffic. It just makes sense to have a backup.
The most encouraging discussion with railroad officials relative to our current situation revolved around using the bridge for ambulances and medical personnel. Passage over the bridge would require meeting an on-site railroad worker who would open locked gates. This would address one of the most perilous eventualities of the current bridge closing. I am hopeful the Norfolk Southern will make its determination quickly on this matter.
The other encouraging thing to come out of the discussion is the apparent willingness to look at further use of the bridge after the current mess is sorted out. Many have longed to have the bridge open as a link between Louisville's River Walk and Southern Indiana's Greenway. I am more confident now that the small steps we make during the current situation can lead to wider use of the K & I in the future. Since the bridge is a private structure it will be up to City officials to work with Norfolk Southern personnel to work out a plan for pedestrian/bike use of the bridge, and also to put in place a permanent plan for emergency use even after the current problem with the Sherman Minton is solved.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Nudge List- Intro.
As one who came of age before Blackberries,iphones and computers. And as one who would not claim getting and staying organized as among his better traits, I confess to being one who writes notes to himself: on envelopes,napkins, newspapers, coffee cups, business cards. In short, I scribble notes to myself on any available paper surface in order to remember what I want or need to remember. Unfortunately, I often don't remember where I've put the scraps on which I wrote the notes to myself.
So here is a list, gleaned from notepads, cigar boxes, and glove compartments, of things I'd like to see happen in New Albany if I'm elected to a second term. That is to say, these are things I would like to help bring to fruition. Most of these issues are not fully within my or any other council member's ability to bring about. They primarily fall within the ambit of the Mayor. He could pick up some of these ideas and run with them. The next mayor has a list of projects and priorities that he will want to pursue. Whether any of my plans are to be found on any of the mayoral candidates' lists I can't say.
I'm not referring to this as a list of campaign promises. I hope it is more than a wish list. I think of it more as a nudge list. Some of these are things I will be introducing on my own, but more likely I will be nudging the Mayor to see the value of these plans, projects or dreams, and to offer my help from the Council to make them reality. A common characteristic of most of these bullet points is that they are not, for the most part, expensive undertakings. Rather, they are quality-of-life projects that can be put into practice on a relative shoestring. Another common thread -- they tend to capitalize on the investments our forebears have already made for us.
If we learn nothing else from the closing of the Sherman Minton bridge, we should recognize that saving money is fine, getting by on less is sometimes necessary, but our physical civic infrastructure, sometimes referred to as The Commons, requires attention. In times past, people recognized this and accepted upkeep of The Commons as society's cost of doing business. We must be about that business again, and many of these ideas, I think, are ways we can do that right here in New Albany. These are ways we can make what we have better, and make our city more liveable, functional and prosperous.
All I'm writing here now is the list of notes I've made. From now through the election I'll explain what I mean about them and why I think they're important.
In no particular order:
Shirt Factory Incubator
Improved Web Site for Our City
Dog Park
Community Gardens
Take Advantage of Falling Run Creek
Challenge Zones--Incentives for Re-Developers
K & I Bridge, City Pays Insurance to Allow Bridge to Open
Continued Progress on Code Enforcement
Cherry Street Project, NSP
Sidewalks Where None Exist
Explore Feasibility of Form-Based Codes
Expansion of Farmers' Market
Stronger Ties to I.U.S.
Proper Structure and Balance in City-County Agreements
Expose Brick Streets
Expanded Use of Courts to Aid Code Enforcement
What Follows EMC?
Continued Progress on Revitalization Downtown and on Charlestown Road
Point System to Weight Purchasing Decisions in Favor of Local Producers/Sellers
While this list may seem long, it isn't complete. I haven't even checked the pockets of the coats I put away last spring.
So here is a list, gleaned from notepads, cigar boxes, and glove compartments, of things I'd like to see happen in New Albany if I'm elected to a second term. That is to say, these are things I would like to help bring to fruition. Most of these issues are not fully within my or any other council member's ability to bring about. They primarily fall within the ambit of the Mayor. He could pick up some of these ideas and run with them. The next mayor has a list of projects and priorities that he will want to pursue. Whether any of my plans are to be found on any of the mayoral candidates' lists I can't say.
I'm not referring to this as a list of campaign promises. I hope it is more than a wish list. I think of it more as a nudge list. Some of these are things I will be introducing on my own, but more likely I will be nudging the Mayor to see the value of these plans, projects or dreams, and to offer my help from the Council to make them reality. A common characteristic of most of these bullet points is that they are not, for the most part, expensive undertakings. Rather, they are quality-of-life projects that can be put into practice on a relative shoestring. Another common thread -- they tend to capitalize on the investments our forebears have already made for us.
If we learn nothing else from the closing of the Sherman Minton bridge, we should recognize that saving money is fine, getting by on less is sometimes necessary, but our physical civic infrastructure, sometimes referred to as The Commons, requires attention. In times past, people recognized this and accepted upkeep of The Commons as society's cost of doing business. We must be about that business again, and many of these ideas, I think, are ways we can do that right here in New Albany. These are ways we can make what we have better, and make our city more liveable, functional and prosperous.
All I'm writing here now is the list of notes I've made. From now through the election I'll explain what I mean about them and why I think they're important.
In no particular order:
Shirt Factory Incubator
Improved Web Site for Our City
Dog Park
Community Gardens
Take Advantage of Falling Run Creek
Challenge Zones--Incentives for Re-Developers
K & I Bridge, City Pays Insurance to Allow Bridge to Open
Continued Progress on Code Enforcement
Cherry Street Project, NSP
Sidewalks Where None Exist
Explore Feasibility of Form-Based Codes
Expansion of Farmers' Market
Stronger Ties to I.U.S.
Proper Structure and Balance in City-County Agreements
Expose Brick Streets
Expanded Use of Courts to Aid Code Enforcement
What Follows EMC?
Continued Progress on Revitalization Downtown and on Charlestown Road
Point System to Weight Purchasing Decisions in Favor of Local Producers/Sellers
While this list may seem long, it isn't complete. I haven't even checked the pockets of the coats I put away last spring.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Non-news Sounds From September 11, 2001
This song was in my car CD player on September 11, 2001. I had played it along with the rest of the album frequently in the days or weeks leading up to the attack. I played it several times that day. Whether it picked up an association at that time or whether it had grooved into my brain prior to the event, it is evocative for me of that day.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
You Can't Get There From Here. Or, Can You?
The emergency closing of the Sherman Minton bridge needs to be addressed with adroitness. Newspaper accounts put the daily traffic flow across that span at upwards of 70,000 vehicles a day. The ability of the two remaining car bridges, the Kennedy Bridge and the Clark Memorial Bridge, are woefully inadequate to handle the sudden increase in traffic which they will face for the duration of the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge.
Some have called for reliance on car pools,staggered shifts, and flexible work hours to meet the challenge. This wake up call underscores the foolishness of ignoring maintenance. It points out at the local level the compromised status of our infrastructure. It should represent a true national challenge, something like the "Sputnik moment" of the late fifties. It should force us to question the sense of putting all the eggs of our transportation system in the single basket of personal automobile commuting.
It should, and it could, but it probably won't. And it certainly won't by Monday morning when some kind of "geddon" will await those damned to make the trip by car to Louisville and back to meet the requirements of their jobs.
So here's a modest, perhaps counter intuitive, proposal of how we might muddle through this "cartastrophe" in the coming weeks.
Close the Clark Memorial Bridge to personal vehicles. Allow that span to carry only buses and emergency vehicles on the traffic lanes. Pedestrians and cyclists could use the sidewalks. It will do commuters little good to jump on a bus which will be stuck in barely moving traffic. There will be little incentive for car drivers to leave their cars parked if there is no expedited way of crossing the river. If buses are given free flow through designated streets and a green light at the Clark Bridge, I think those who see the buses rolling as the car bound sit mired in traffic may quickly decide that, at least during this particularly trying period, it would be wise to rely on mass transit.
It would be up to transportation experts to figure out how neophyte bus riders can be directed to their destinations once they've successfully crossed the river and de-bused at Union Station or some other central point. The first and biggest obstacle will be the bridge crossing itself.
The need to provide for easy cross-river travel of emergency vehicles is simply obvious on its face.
Once normalcy returns to daily traffic patterns it will be up to us as a community to recognize the vulnerability of our transportation non-system and proceed with a reasoned discussion of Twenty First Century alternatives. The alarm has sounded. Will there be sufficient will to meet the challenges and prepare for a better future?
Some have called for reliance on car pools,staggered shifts, and flexible work hours to meet the challenge. This wake up call underscores the foolishness of ignoring maintenance. It points out at the local level the compromised status of our infrastructure. It should represent a true national challenge, something like the "Sputnik moment" of the late fifties. It should force us to question the sense of putting all the eggs of our transportation system in the single basket of personal automobile commuting.
It should, and it could, but it probably won't. And it certainly won't by Monday morning when some kind of "geddon" will await those damned to make the trip by car to Louisville and back to meet the requirements of their jobs.
So here's a modest, perhaps counter intuitive, proposal of how we might muddle through this "cartastrophe" in the coming weeks.
Close the Clark Memorial Bridge to personal vehicles. Allow that span to carry only buses and emergency vehicles on the traffic lanes. Pedestrians and cyclists could use the sidewalks. It will do commuters little good to jump on a bus which will be stuck in barely moving traffic. There will be little incentive for car drivers to leave their cars parked if there is no expedited way of crossing the river. If buses are given free flow through designated streets and a green light at the Clark Bridge, I think those who see the buses rolling as the car bound sit mired in traffic may quickly decide that, at least during this particularly trying period, it would be wise to rely on mass transit.
It would be up to transportation experts to figure out how neophyte bus riders can be directed to their destinations once they've successfully crossed the river and de-bused at Union Station or some other central point. The first and biggest obstacle will be the bridge crossing itself.
The need to provide for easy cross-river travel of emergency vehicles is simply obvious on its face.
Once normalcy returns to daily traffic patterns it will be up to us as a community to recognize the vulnerability of our transportation non-system and proceed with a reasoned discussion of Twenty First Century alternatives. The alarm has sounded. Will there be sufficient will to meet the challenges and prepare for a better future?
Saturday, September 3, 2011
President Obama, It's Not as if You Have to Reinvent the Wheel
Yesterday, President Obama, for reasons known only to him, continued his march to Appeasamattox, as he threw the regulation of smog overboard. Frankly, it's getting tiresome and indefensible.
The President could learn something from one of his great predecessors...
The President could learn something from one of his great predecessors...
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Morons Inc.
As most people know by now, Willard "Mitt" Romney thinks corporations are people. He has some legal precedence for that view, regardless of how distasteful the notion is to us mortals who also happen to share the appellation. If personhood for immortal business arrangements rankles you a bit, here's a link to challenge the concept.
Romney's fellow Republican notable, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, tweaks the construction just a bit to say that, "people are corporations." The Republican tendency of proffering corporate welfare to large defense contractors will work under the Romney view, in fact making him a veritable 21st century FDR. The Paulian interpretation is a bit more of a problem. If people are corporations, then it follows, the Tea leaves would not favor giving welfare to corporations.
In a society/polity which contemplates and tolerates such nonsense, it would be well to contemplate other deep theoretical issues. At least these fellows below had science and logic on their side.
Romney's fellow Republican notable, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, tweaks the construction just a bit to say that, "people are corporations." The Republican tendency of proffering corporate welfare to large defense contractors will work under the Romney view, in fact making him a veritable 21st century FDR. The Paulian interpretation is a bit more of a problem. If people are corporations, then it follows, the Tea leaves would not favor giving welfare to corporations.
In a society/polity which contemplates and tolerates such nonsense, it would be well to contemplate other deep theoretical issues. At least these fellows below had science and logic on their side.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Of Demagogues and Demigods; Of Charlatans, and Sheep
Just ahead lies the abyss, we are told. We are offered a way back, a hand to guide us away. We must seek out the foul perpetrator of our current malaise. We must pursue him into the grave, exhume him, repudiate him and abandon that which he set in place as he saved Capitalism from devouring itself. The demagogues of the right, he of the fat head, and his disciples, wish that the noble Roosevelt (at this point either one suffices as an enemy of the right) arise, renounce his egalitarian deeds and expunge them from the national consciousness before retreating to his grave. The odious Limbaugh says, "Roosevelt is dead. His policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."
Yes, we're doing something about his policies. If we follow the radical elements of the Republican Party, a.k.a. Teabaggers,we'll be desiccating the fields that allowed a social safety net to be woven, a net which protects us from the inevitable vicissitudes of life, which, sans Social Security and Medicare, would now include the market-borne ravages of old age, infirmity, and poverty: a shrinking middle class, diminished educational opportunities and a general de-lustering of the "American Dream" . We're throwing American jobs overboard with both hands as we seek to enrich "shareholder value" by freezing costs through near-slave wages overseas while letting profits rise here. The sky's the limit on profit when the cost of labor is debased to Chinese, Vietnamese, Singaporean levels, but the sale price here is what the market will bear.
Goods manufactured in low wage countries are often of inferior quality. A cynic may propose that reservations to buy such schlock may be overcome if the wages of Americans, the top of the class in the consumer universe, are retarded by union busting, fear, and further job propulsion away from our shores. Then shoppers are forced to buy as cheap as it comes, because that's all they can afford. All according to plan in a society where the bar is always lowered for the poor and middle class as the sights of corporate movers and shakers are always raised.
Again to the precipice. We face a crisis. Obama has ruined the country. We should never have allowed such as him to occupy the White House. Yet wasn't this man dealt a royal flush of woes? His predecessor inherited a surplus. Obama is handed the wheel by the drunken teenager who has steered the car toward a cliff; each wheel looser than when he pulled the car out of the driveway. The first thing to do when the surplus was booked was to excuse those who paid taxes during the boom years--strike one against fiscal sanity. The second thing was to chase a phantom into the quagmire of war with all such expenditures "off the books"--strike two against fiscal sanity. He also added corporate apologists to the Supreme Court, who have upheld business interests over citizens' interest and rights. One of the most egregious and long-reaching is the Citizens United case which bestows rights upon corporations that are super-human, and for which mere human powers are no equal--strike three. You're out. Next batter. Oh yeah, bottom of the ninth, you're down 14 trillion to 0.
Within the confines of the asylum, Cheney asserted that,Reagan proved "deficits don't matter." Ask Eric Cantor if that view still holds sway. Obama addressed the peculiar book keeping tricks which kept Bush's wars "off the books", so now he is saddled with the responsibility of being a responsible executive, wishing the bills weren't there doesn't mean they aren't due.
As the country, thanks to illegal, orgiastic behavior by the country's bankers, sank into something which smelled a bit like a depression, steps were taken to save one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturing components of the U.S. economy, the auto industry. In retrospect the Teabaggers say it should have been allowed to fail. That element of the Republican Party truly has a death wish. And it's not a wish directed at itself, it is, rather, directed at the middle class, by depriving those slackers of: universal education, publicly-funded health care, a decent job with rising expectations for workers and their families, clean air and water, reasonable protection against usurious banking practices, and a world whose priorities are not driven by fear.
The greatest mystery to me as that the Tea Party and its devoteas are, by and large, members of the very class they are working to undermine. They see nothing wrong with being led by the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Limbaugh/Beck et.al.,Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News as those thugs seek to build a society in which the rich get richer and the devil take the hindmost.
Yes, we're doing something about his policies. If we follow the radical elements of the Republican Party, a.k.a. Teabaggers,we'll be desiccating the fields that allowed a social safety net to be woven, a net which protects us from the inevitable vicissitudes of life, which, sans Social Security and Medicare, would now include the market-borne ravages of old age, infirmity, and poverty: a shrinking middle class, diminished educational opportunities and a general de-lustering of the "American Dream" . We're throwing American jobs overboard with both hands as we seek to enrich "shareholder value" by freezing costs through near-slave wages overseas while letting profits rise here. The sky's the limit on profit when the cost of labor is debased to Chinese, Vietnamese, Singaporean levels, but the sale price here is what the market will bear.
Goods manufactured in low wage countries are often of inferior quality. A cynic may propose that reservations to buy such schlock may be overcome if the wages of Americans, the top of the class in the consumer universe, are retarded by union busting, fear, and further job propulsion away from our shores. Then shoppers are forced to buy as cheap as it comes, because that's all they can afford. All according to plan in a society where the bar is always lowered for the poor and middle class as the sights of corporate movers and shakers are always raised.
Again to the precipice. We face a crisis. Obama has ruined the country. We should never have allowed such as him to occupy the White House. Yet wasn't this man dealt a royal flush of woes? His predecessor inherited a surplus. Obama is handed the wheel by the drunken teenager who has steered the car toward a cliff; each wheel looser than when he pulled the car out of the driveway. The first thing to do when the surplus was booked was to excuse those who paid taxes during the boom years--strike one against fiscal sanity. The second thing was to chase a phantom into the quagmire of war with all such expenditures "off the books"--strike two against fiscal sanity. He also added corporate apologists to the Supreme Court, who have upheld business interests over citizens' interest and rights. One of the most egregious and long-reaching is the Citizens United case which bestows rights upon corporations that are super-human, and for which mere human powers are no equal--strike three. You're out. Next batter. Oh yeah, bottom of the ninth, you're down 14 trillion to 0.
Within the confines of the asylum, Cheney asserted that,Reagan proved "deficits don't matter." Ask Eric Cantor if that view still holds sway. Obama addressed the peculiar book keeping tricks which kept Bush's wars "off the books", so now he is saddled with the responsibility of being a responsible executive, wishing the bills weren't there doesn't mean they aren't due.
As the country, thanks to illegal, orgiastic behavior by the country's bankers, sank into something which smelled a bit like a depression, steps were taken to save one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturing components of the U.S. economy, the auto industry. In retrospect the Teabaggers say it should have been allowed to fail. That element of the Republican Party truly has a death wish. And it's not a wish directed at itself, it is, rather, directed at the middle class, by depriving those slackers of: universal education, publicly-funded health care, a decent job with rising expectations for workers and their families, clean air and water, reasonable protection against usurious banking practices, and a world whose priorities are not driven by fear.
The greatest mystery to me as that the Tea Party and its devoteas are, by and large, members of the very class they are working to undermine. They see nothing wrong with being led by the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Limbaugh/Beck et.al.,Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News as those thugs seek to build a society in which the rich get richer and the devil take the hindmost.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Are There Evil People in the World? Are There Evil Fanatics?
YES....The answer is given in today's New York Times.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in cloth that they detonated remotely when she was close to a police vehicle, the Afghan authorities said Sunday.
Related
Car Bomb Blast at Afghan Hospital Kills at Least 20 (June 26, 2011) Only the girl was killed in the blast, which occurred Sunday morning in the village of Uwshi in the Char Chino District, said Fazal Ahmad Shirzad, the police chief of Oruzgan Province.
Mr. Shirzad said he believed the girl was unaware that the bag she had been given by Taliban insurgents held a bomb. Her body was “taken to a nearby security check post, and the police called her relatives,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Logar Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the death toll rose to 37 after a bombing on Saturday at a small-town hospital, said Dr. Mohammed Zarif Naibkhail, the director of public health for the province. He said that at least 53 people had been wounded.
But, he said, the actual number of casualties was probably much higher. “Local villagers rushed to the hospital right after the explosion and took the bodies of their relatives to their own villages,” he said.
In other parts of the country, four NATO soldiers were killed. Two of them were Spanish soldiers who died when an improvised explosive device detonated in Badghis Province in western Afghanistan, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. The other two soldiers died in separate episodes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to a NATO statement.
Afghan radio stations also reported that rocket fire from Pakistan over the last week had led President Hamid Karzai to register a former complaint with the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, at a regional terrorism meeting in Iran on Saturday. Mr. Zardari promised to investigate, said Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar.
The unexplained rocket fire will be a topic of discussion when senior government figures from the two countries meet this week, Mr. Omar said. The Afghan National Security Council discussed the matter on Sunday.
According to Mr. Omar, President Zardari and the Pakistani Interior Ministry said the rockets, which hit Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, were not fired by the Pakistani Army.
Mr. Omar said 470 rockets had been fired, killing at least 18 people and wounding 17. Since Pakistan’s tribal areas border eastern Afghanistan and are largely outside the Pakistani government’s control, it is possible that insurgent groups are responsible. But some Pakistani insurgents have set up bases in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan, raising the possibility that the rockets may have been fired by the Pakistani security forces.
“We want this resolved peacefully,” Mr. Omar said. He added that if the Pakistani government was not responsible, it should say so publicly and find and stop the attackers.
General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said that Afghan military forces were “ready to retaliate” if instructed to do so. A NATO spokesman said coalition officials were not aware of the rocket fire because they did not have troops in the areas where it occurred.
Ray Rivera contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in cloth that they detonated remotely when she was close to a police vehicle, the Afghan authorities said Sunday.
Related
Car Bomb Blast at Afghan Hospital Kills at Least 20 (June 26, 2011) Only the girl was killed in the blast, which occurred Sunday morning in the village of Uwshi in the Char Chino District, said Fazal Ahmad Shirzad, the police chief of Oruzgan Province.
Mr. Shirzad said he believed the girl was unaware that the bag she had been given by Taliban insurgents held a bomb. Her body was “taken to a nearby security check post, and the police called her relatives,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Logar Province in southeastern Afghanistan, the death toll rose to 37 after a bombing on Saturday at a small-town hospital, said Dr. Mohammed Zarif Naibkhail, the director of public health for the province. He said that at least 53 people had been wounded.
But, he said, the actual number of casualties was probably much higher. “Local villagers rushed to the hospital right after the explosion and took the bodies of their relatives to their own villages,” he said.
In other parts of the country, four NATO soldiers were killed. Two of them were Spanish soldiers who died when an improvised explosive device detonated in Badghis Province in western Afghanistan, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. The other two soldiers died in separate episodes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to a NATO statement.
Afghan radio stations also reported that rocket fire from Pakistan over the last week had led President Hamid Karzai to register a former complaint with the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, at a regional terrorism meeting in Iran on Saturday. Mr. Zardari promised to investigate, said Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omar.
The unexplained rocket fire will be a topic of discussion when senior government figures from the two countries meet this week, Mr. Omar said. The Afghan National Security Council discussed the matter on Sunday.
According to Mr. Omar, President Zardari and the Pakistani Interior Ministry said the rockets, which hit Kunar and Nangarhar Provinces, were not fired by the Pakistani Army.
Mr. Omar said 470 rockets had been fired, killing at least 18 people and wounding 17. Since Pakistan’s tribal areas border eastern Afghanistan and are largely outside the Pakistani government’s control, it is possible that insurgent groups are responsible. But some Pakistani insurgents have set up bases in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan, raising the possibility that the rockets may have been fired by the Pakistani security forces.
“We want this resolved peacefully,” Mr. Omar said. He added that if the Pakistani government was not responsible, it should say so publicly and find and stop the attackers.
General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said that Afghan military forces were “ready to retaliate” if instructed to do so. A NATO spokesman said coalition officials were not aware of the rocket fire because they did not have troops in the areas where it occurred.
Ray Rivera contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Father's Day 2011
My father worked at Breece Plywood on Thirteenth Street along the floodwall. He worked there from 1937 until 1969, around the time it closed. His office was parallel to the railroad tracks, and I used to love going there on those occasions when he had to go in for one reason or another and I happened to be out of school. Sometimes the boiler tender would allow me to sling a few shovels of coal into the massive furnace, or blow the whistle which marked off some noteworthy point in time. Often I would slide a Coke out of the machine which had a serious design flaw that lined up an open cell every so often and left a bottle vulnerable to attentive pilchers.
Although the time I shared with my father at Breece's was mainly in the Sixties, the factory and offices as I saw them could have easily been seen in the same condition four or five decades earlier. It was a place frozen in time.
My father hit his teen years about the time the country hit the skids and fell into The Depression. I recall an event my dad told me of a scene he witnessed through his office window, and though he didn't explicitly say it, I believe the event must have taken him back to his own childhood in those cold days of austere deprivation. He saw two children about eight or ten years old walking down the railroad tracks. These were neighborhood kids, he figured, since he had seen them walking the tracks from time to time. He began to notice they would carry between them a bushel basket and every once in a while they would bend and place something in the basket. After a couple days of this he walked out to ask them what they were doing and they said they were picking up coal, which had fallen from the passing rail cars so they could keep their house heated. He asked around the plant who the kids were, and somebody knew them. He called the coal company and had several tons of coal delivered to the address. They probably never knew how it happened, but at least for that winter they knew warmth.
Thanks to my dad for that lesson. Now, on his tombstone are the words, "what you have done to least of my brothers you have done to me." He was a good man, and I miss him.
Although the time I shared with my father at Breece's was mainly in the Sixties, the factory and offices as I saw them could have easily been seen in the same condition four or five decades earlier. It was a place frozen in time.
My father hit his teen years about the time the country hit the skids and fell into The Depression. I recall an event my dad told me of a scene he witnessed through his office window, and though he didn't explicitly say it, I believe the event must have taken him back to his own childhood in those cold days of austere deprivation. He saw two children about eight or ten years old walking down the railroad tracks. These were neighborhood kids, he figured, since he had seen them walking the tracks from time to time. He began to notice they would carry between them a bushel basket and every once in a while they would bend and place something in the basket. After a couple days of this he walked out to ask them what they were doing and they said they were picking up coal, which had fallen from the passing rail cars so they could keep their house heated. He asked around the plant who the kids were, and somebody knew them. He called the coal company and had several tons of coal delivered to the address. They probably never knew how it happened, but at least for that winter they knew warmth.
Thanks to my dad for that lesson. Now, on his tombstone are the words, "what you have done to least of my brothers you have done to me." He was a good man, and I miss him.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
For What It's Worth
As time draws near for the City Council's consideration of the River View plan, here's where I stand. I'd like to lay out a much more reasoned, lengthy explication of my position, but the sand has fallen through the glass.
I expect to vote for the inclusion of the River View project into the T.I.F. district, which is the only vote before the Council now. That district will include the shelved project by Holliday and Goodman.
The ball will then be in the court of the entity referred to as Mainland Properties. That entity will need to convince banks that it can sell unfinished condo space in a soft market at the rate of $257.14 per square foot. Incidentally, the penthouse unit priced at $1.26 million is parsed out at $260 per square foot. For my money, I'm springing the extra three bucks to get whatever constitutes a finished product.
At the depth of the current recession in mid-2009 the price per square foot for houses in New Albany was $78 per square foot. By May 2011 it had rocketed to $82 per square foot. LINK HERE
I believe in the renaissance of downtown New Albany. I believe in order to keep that renaissance rolling we must think big. I believe we, in the seats of decision makers, in this time, must insist that what we do today is prudent and beneficial not only to ourselves and our contemporaries but to our descendants generations beyond the horizon.
Please consider the inventory of available land opening on to our river heritage, our river view, and decide if this is the best opportunity, if this is the best time to extract that parcel of land from the commons of the citizens of New Albany, present and future, and place it into private, for-profit hands.
Please consider the vital role that the citizens of New Albany must play in determining the current and future use of this critical piece of land in the city's heart. And consider that you must step forward to help the City make the right decision.
Many have weighed in, both for and against the project. Think about those in the unbelievable year of 2213--our Quadracentennial-- who will look back at what we have done today. Will it have been right? Will have stood the test of time? Was it a wise move? Was it a quick grab for fleeting gain?
If the citizens of New Albany decide to move forward with this project, in recognition of the momentous decision before us, I believe it is reasonable to ask the developers to hold a design competition to maximize the civic value of this piece of ground. Sure, this is New Albany, Indiana, in the broad view, the epitome of no place special, but it is a place ready to make a community commitment of $12 million to back up a private commitment of $40 plus million in a fervent attempt to save its downtown, its heritage.
If New Albany steps up to the plate, will Mainland Properties follow?
I expect to vote for the inclusion of the River View project into the T.I.F. district, which is the only vote before the Council now. That district will include the shelved project by Holliday and Goodman.
The ball will then be in the court of the entity referred to as Mainland Properties. That entity will need to convince banks that it can sell unfinished condo space in a soft market at the rate of $257.14 per square foot. Incidentally, the penthouse unit priced at $1.26 million is parsed out at $260 per square foot. For my money, I'm springing the extra three bucks to get whatever constitutes a finished product.
At the depth of the current recession in mid-2009 the price per square foot for houses in New Albany was $78 per square foot. By May 2011 it had rocketed to $82 per square foot. LINK HERE
I believe in the renaissance of downtown New Albany. I believe in order to keep that renaissance rolling we must think big. I believe we, in the seats of decision makers, in this time, must insist that what we do today is prudent and beneficial not only to ourselves and our contemporaries but to our descendants generations beyond the horizon.
Please consider the inventory of available land opening on to our river heritage, our river view, and decide if this is the best opportunity, if this is the best time to extract that parcel of land from the commons of the citizens of New Albany, present and future, and place it into private, for-profit hands.
Please consider the vital role that the citizens of New Albany must play in determining the current and future use of this critical piece of land in the city's heart. And consider that you must step forward to help the City make the right decision.
Many have weighed in, both for and against the project. Think about those in the unbelievable year of 2213--our Quadracentennial-- who will look back at what we have done today. Will it have been right? Will have stood the test of time? Was it a wise move? Was it a quick grab for fleeting gain?
If the citizens of New Albany decide to move forward with this project, in recognition of the momentous decision before us, I believe it is reasonable to ask the developers to hold a design competition to maximize the civic value of this piece of ground. Sure, this is New Albany, Indiana, in the broad view, the epitome of no place special, but it is a place ready to make a community commitment of $12 million to back up a private commitment of $40 plus million in a fervent attempt to save its downtown, its heritage.
If New Albany steps up to the plate, will Mainland Properties follow?
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Considering River View
An editorial in today's Tribune (link here) endorsed the River View project for New Albany's financial salvation. It likens the decision we face to that faced several years back in giving thumbs up to the YMCA. The Tribune may be correct in its opinion.
But in the Courier-Journal we read these words from Wendell Berry addressing a different issue, but hitting some of the same points we must consider in deciding if River View is the best view...
"For humans, local adaptation is not work for a few financiers and a few intellectual and political hotshots. This is work for everybody, requiring everybody's intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.
What must we do?" (link to Berry's complete piece)
Berry's piece is, as usual and expected, instructive on many levels. The River View project is not likely to directly affect our agricultural vulnerabilities. Downtown property is not at a decision point of whether to go toward community gardens or toward commercial/residential use. That decision was made long ago.
But we face a monumental decision of how we forge ahead with the River View project. Our decision in 2011 or 2012 will deal the cards for many generations.
Private profit should not be the determining factor in a decision of this magnitude. When the fate of our downtown is on the line, it is time for a wider airing of the decisions we face as a community.
As Wendell Berry said, "This is work for everybody,...It is work inherently democratic."
Open the doors, and let the sun shine in.
But in the Courier-Journal we read these words from Wendell Berry addressing a different issue, but hitting some of the same points we must consider in deciding if River View is the best view...
"For humans, local adaptation is not work for a few financiers and a few intellectual and political hotshots. This is work for everybody, requiring everybody's intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.
What must we do?" (link to Berry's complete piece)
Berry's piece is, as usual and expected, instructive on many levels. The River View project is not likely to directly affect our agricultural vulnerabilities. Downtown property is not at a decision point of whether to go toward community gardens or toward commercial/residential use. That decision was made long ago.
But we face a monumental decision of how we forge ahead with the River View project. Our decision in 2011 or 2012 will deal the cards for many generations.
Private profit should not be the determining factor in a decision of this magnitude. When the fate of our downtown is on the line, it is time for a wider airing of the decisions we face as a community.
As Wendell Berry said, "This is work for everybody,...It is work inherently democratic."
Open the doors, and let the sun shine in.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Thank You
Thank you to those who voted for me; you know who you are.
And, thanks to all those who came out and voted, period.
It is a sad commentary on our collective interest in self-government that so few make the effort to participate in our democracy.
Although it's been said before, those who step forward to run for office deserve deserve commendation.
As one who had uncomfortable competition in the race, I truly believe that such competition was not unwelcome. There may come a day for me when the discomfort will be underlined by my being pushed out the door. If that time arrives I hope to reflect not on the loss, but the privilege I had to serve my hometown in its pursuit of progress.
I look forward to the general election with the confidence that the City will be in good hands so long as caring, committed people run for office, and of equal importance, so long as caring, committed non-office holders stay engaged in the pursuit of progress.
And, thanks to all those who came out and voted, period.
It is a sad commentary on our collective interest in self-government that so few make the effort to participate in our democracy.
Although it's been said before, those who step forward to run for office deserve deserve commendation.
As one who had uncomfortable competition in the race, I truly believe that such competition was not unwelcome. There may come a day for me when the discomfort will be underlined by my being pushed out the door. If that time arrives I hope to reflect not on the loss, but the privilege I had to serve my hometown in its pursuit of progress.
I look forward to the general election with the confidence that the City will be in good hands so long as caring, committed people run for office, and of equal importance, so long as caring, committed non-office holders stay engaged in the pursuit of progress.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Primary Thoughts
A couple months ago I was listening to Travel With Rick Steves on WFPL, he was interviewing Jeff Greenwald about his book "Snake Lake". The book recounts episodes of Greenwald's many travels to Nepal. It was a highly interesting program.
At one point the host asked the question, "do the Nepalese operate from a philosophy of scarcity or a philosophy of abundance?"
That, I think, is one of the essential questions of governance in our time. Since I was then early in the campaign for re-election to the City Council I applied that question to my situation.
Is New Albany operating from a position of scarcity, or abundance? For any who follow local politics, the answer seems all too obvious. We are firmly in the scarcity camp. Too often decisions have about them the sense of a zero-sum-game in which if you win, I lose.
On the other hand we could approach civic relations from a philosophy of abundance in which when more people win, more people win, and I might be one of them; and if I'm not, I will still inhabit a better city.
Scarcity is not simply a lack of material things.And abundance is not a scorecard where one tallies possessions to measure relative better-offness.
Much of scarcity is self-centered penury, and some of it is fear. Fear of what? Fear that if you win I lose, and there we go again. But fear is also used as a weapon to diminish our capacity to think the future can be better. We can not strive for a better tomorrow because we must hunker down and protect what we have. With scarce thinking we behold a bleak horizon.
Abundance is a sense that much awaits us even if not much is with us now. It is a sense that we can build a better tomorrow. We can build it through a wealth of committed individuals who make up a caring community. We can build it with a vision of abundance, a long horizon, for those who follow us. Those who preceded us must have had a sense of abundance long ago or they would not have built what has lasted until today.
From time to time throughout this campaign I have used the phrase "civic compact" to label what it is I think should inform government service at any level. What I mean by that phrase is simply an intergenerational promise to make this small plot of the Earth rational, functional, pleasant, and sustainable. I believe those are key components of abundance.
I had intended to write more on this topic, but time is scarce.
At one point the host asked the question, "do the Nepalese operate from a philosophy of scarcity or a philosophy of abundance?"
That, I think, is one of the essential questions of governance in our time. Since I was then early in the campaign for re-election to the City Council I applied that question to my situation.
Is New Albany operating from a position of scarcity, or abundance? For any who follow local politics, the answer seems all too obvious. We are firmly in the scarcity camp. Too often decisions have about them the sense of a zero-sum-game in which if you win, I lose.
On the other hand we could approach civic relations from a philosophy of abundance in which when more people win, more people win, and I might be one of them; and if I'm not, I will still inhabit a better city.
Scarcity is not simply a lack of material things.And abundance is not a scorecard where one tallies possessions to measure relative better-offness.
Much of scarcity is self-centered penury, and some of it is fear. Fear of what? Fear that if you win I lose, and there we go again. But fear is also used as a weapon to diminish our capacity to think the future can be better. We can not strive for a better tomorrow because we must hunker down and protect what we have. With scarce thinking we behold a bleak horizon.
Abundance is a sense that much awaits us even if not much is with us now. It is a sense that we can build a better tomorrow. We can build it through a wealth of committed individuals who make up a caring community. We can build it with a vision of abundance, a long horizon, for those who follow us. Those who preceded us must have had a sense of abundance long ago or they would not have built what has lasted until today.
From time to time throughout this campaign I have used the phrase "civic compact" to label what it is I think should inform government service at any level. What I mean by that phrase is simply an intergenerational promise to make this small plot of the Earth rational, functional, pleasant, and sustainable. I believe those are key components of abundance.
I had intended to write more on this topic, but time is scarce.
Friday, April 29, 2011
EMC Loses Part of Sewer Contract
Mayor England sent out a press release this afternoon confirming what had been expected, that the private company which manages the New Albany sewer system will relinquish some of its contract resulting in the annual saving of $700,000.
The amount of the contract sacrificed, costs the City about $1,700,000 annually. Of that amount, a significant portion is a "management fee". According to the press release, this will "allow in excess of $1 million to be directed to improving the collection system."
The improvement of the collection system refers to an in-place re-lining process designed to eliminate inflow and infiltration. It is this undermining of the system by the infusion of groundwater into broken and deteriorated pipes that overwhelms the system during heavy rains, resulting in illegal discharges into the river. These discharges caused fines to be levied against the utility by the EPA, and they are the reason New Albany's sewer system is subject to a consent decree with the EPA to clean up the overflow problem.
The re-lining will now be done by employees of the New Albany sewer utility, and paid directly by the utility. The elimination of a private, for-profit management company puts New Albany in a better position to control its own fate and to keep the money spent on this process in the local economy.
Perhaps EMC was a necessary bridge to a point of stability in the management of the sewer utility. But now that the contract has been abridged to allow the Sewer Board its rightful place in managing the utility, we might take from this excercise in public/private partnerships, the lesson that cities need not always be run like a business.
Running cities openly and for the benefit of the citizens is not easy but it is the business of government, and government is a not-for-profit enterprise.
The amount of the contract sacrificed, costs the City about $1,700,000 annually. Of that amount, a significant portion is a "management fee". According to the press release, this will "allow in excess of $1 million to be directed to improving the collection system."
The improvement of the collection system refers to an in-place re-lining process designed to eliminate inflow and infiltration. It is this undermining of the system by the infusion of groundwater into broken and deteriorated pipes that overwhelms the system during heavy rains, resulting in illegal discharges into the river. These discharges caused fines to be levied against the utility by the EPA, and they are the reason New Albany's sewer system is subject to a consent decree with the EPA to clean up the overflow problem.
The re-lining will now be done by employees of the New Albany sewer utility, and paid directly by the utility. The elimination of a private, for-profit management company puts New Albany in a better position to control its own fate and to keep the money spent on this process in the local economy.
Perhaps EMC was a necessary bridge to a point of stability in the management of the sewer utility. But now that the contract has been abridged to allow the Sewer Board its rightful place in managing the utility, we might take from this excercise in public/private partnerships, the lesson that cities need not always be run like a business.
Running cities openly and for the benefit of the citizens is not easy but it is the business of government, and government is a not-for-profit enterprise.
Monday, April 25, 2011
A Fork in the Road
The River View project has taken a seat for the moment. Signs point to a slower closer consideration of the project. Consensus seems to be that the project is good from at least one angle: people are thinking big about downtown New Albany and, likewise, thinking big about housing downtown.
One of the concepts placed on the table for discussion is a "public-private partnership". This term, for such a relatively new concept, seems to be fast becoming not just a way to avoid the messy details of public projects, such as tax-based funding, but also a somewhat inaccurate cliche. The very willingness of a private developer to step forward with an idea seems to place the onus of acceptance at the feet of the citizens, who are then hectored for ingratitude if they balk at the generosity proffered by the developer.
To me, the most appealing feature of the River View plan is its river view. (As mentioned previously, that was the prime motivation behind Gonder Platz.) The design of the condos is prosaic and seems out of scale--but that is a personal and subjective take on it.
For the discussion to have carried forward to the point where slicing into the flood wall is seen as at least on the table, suggests that the City has bought into the cut, at least conceptually. That's great. And if that is the extent of the "public" side of the "public-private" partnership, I'm fine with it.
And therein lies the problem. I don't like the condos. I like the cut in the flood wall. I don't like the scale. I think this. I think that. I did run for office and I do have a vote on this issue. But I can't see the future, and I can't see if what we do today on this unbelievably significant investment for the City's present and future generations is the best course to pursue. Something this monumental, and of this lasting, directional change for New Albany calls for all hands on the wheel.
With the River View project we have a chance to democratize the concept of a "public-private partnership". This democratization, if pursued, would have a direct effect on New Albany's relationship to the river in the immediate case. But, significantly, and lastingly, it could affect our future and our ability to adapt more smartly to it.
Perhaps the best method of democratizing this project and, indeed, the entire process of building a modern, adaptable, environmentally responsible city for now and the future is found in the Smart Growth tenet of Form Based Codes. Here are a couple links to Form Based Code information: Link one and Link 2 .
New Albany is at a fork in the road now. We've been at the fork of other roads before. At one such point we chose to demolish a beautiful and significant structure in our downtown--the Post Office at Pearl and Spring Streets. Through a series of forks in roads we whittled away much of what had made our city something special, and instead opted for sprawling away from our community.
But the River View project is different. It can reorder this City for many, many generations. It can reunite us with the Ohio River, or it can put in place a multi-story ghost town which would act as a pall on future downtown revival. It is a major fork in the road. Joe Biden might call it, "A big forkin deal." And he would be right.
The fork is not whether to go forward with Bobo Platz and River View, or whether to turn down the plan. The BFD is, do we involve the citizens of this community in an inter-generationally defining project, or do we kick it around the Plan Commission and the City Council and come up with something "that we can live with"? A Form Based Code gets the community involved in defining how our City will develop both literally and figuratively.
As the primary campaign winds down, I pledge now, if I am given a second term,to do all that I can to push this city toward a full exploration of a Form Based Code. It may not be the answer to all our planning issues. It may be unworkable here for one reason or another. Or, it may be what lies down one direction of that fork in the road, the direction that leads us sensibly and responsibly into the still-new century.
Even though New Albany does not now operate under a form based code, the overlay of those concepts on the River View project would be a good and sensible way to proceed with that project. Community meetings, called charettes, are a hallmark of form based codes, and it is in these democratic meetings where the citizens can chart the course for their City by saying how they want new to fit in with old.
River View is too important a decision to not include as much community thought as possible.
One of the concepts placed on the table for discussion is a "public-private partnership". This term, for such a relatively new concept, seems to be fast becoming not just a way to avoid the messy details of public projects, such as tax-based funding, but also a somewhat inaccurate cliche. The very willingness of a private developer to step forward with an idea seems to place the onus of acceptance at the feet of the citizens, who are then hectored for ingratitude if they balk at the generosity proffered by the developer.
To me, the most appealing feature of the River View plan is its river view. (As mentioned previously, that was the prime motivation behind Gonder Platz.) The design of the condos is prosaic and seems out of scale--but that is a personal and subjective take on it.
For the discussion to have carried forward to the point where slicing into the flood wall is seen as at least on the table, suggests that the City has bought into the cut, at least conceptually. That's great. And if that is the extent of the "public" side of the "public-private" partnership, I'm fine with it.
And therein lies the problem. I don't like the condos. I like the cut in the flood wall. I don't like the scale. I think this. I think that. I did run for office and I do have a vote on this issue. But I can't see the future, and I can't see if what we do today on this unbelievably significant investment for the City's present and future generations is the best course to pursue. Something this monumental, and of this lasting, directional change for New Albany calls for all hands on the wheel.
With the River View project we have a chance to democratize the concept of a "public-private partnership". This democratization, if pursued, would have a direct effect on New Albany's relationship to the river in the immediate case. But, significantly, and lastingly, it could affect our future and our ability to adapt more smartly to it.
Perhaps the best method of democratizing this project and, indeed, the entire process of building a modern, adaptable, environmentally responsible city for now and the future is found in the Smart Growth tenet of Form Based Codes. Here are a couple links to Form Based Code information: Link one and Link 2 .
New Albany is at a fork in the road now. We've been at the fork of other roads before. At one such point we chose to demolish a beautiful and significant structure in our downtown--the Post Office at Pearl and Spring Streets. Through a series of forks in roads we whittled away much of what had made our city something special, and instead opted for sprawling away from our community.
But the River View project is different. It can reorder this City for many, many generations. It can reunite us with the Ohio River, or it can put in place a multi-story ghost town which would act as a pall on future downtown revival. It is a major fork in the road. Joe Biden might call it, "A big forkin deal." And he would be right.
The fork is not whether to go forward with Bobo Platz and River View, or whether to turn down the plan. The BFD is, do we involve the citizens of this community in an inter-generationally defining project, or do we kick it around the Plan Commission and the City Council and come up with something "that we can live with"? A Form Based Code gets the community involved in defining how our City will develop both literally and figuratively.
As the primary campaign winds down, I pledge now, if I am given a second term,to do all that I can to push this city toward a full exploration of a Form Based Code. It may not be the answer to all our planning issues. It may be unworkable here for one reason or another. Or, it may be what lies down one direction of that fork in the road, the direction that leads us sensibly and responsibly into the still-new century.
Even though New Albany does not now operate under a form based code, the overlay of those concepts on the River View project would be a good and sensible way to proceed with that project. Community meetings, called charettes, are a hallmark of form based codes, and it is in these democratic meetings where the citizens can chart the course for their City by saying how they want new to fit in with old.
River View is too important a decision to not include as much community thought as possible.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
River View, Look Again
Yesterday I recounted the circumstances surrounding the ill-fated project known, only to me, as Gonder Platz. That was intended as simply a preface to a more critical look at the River View project. I will lay out my thoughts on it here. Such an excercise may have little sway upon the reader or value, or even readers. It is more an attempt on my part, to get some thoughts on this once-in-a-lifetime project down in writing.
I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of the project.
I am a proponent of a more densely populated New Albany. I am a proponent of a city which thoughtfully and conscientiously uses its paid-for infrastructure to build a more environmentally responsible forward looking city. Such a city can grow responsibly and in such a way that future generations can see a future here, not simply a starting point on the way to there.
New Albany, as cities go, is pretty average for its size. It has little to exploit, little to differentiate it from any of the thousands of similarly situated cities of comparable size around the country. It matters, really, only to us. Under different circumstances, this blog could as easily be called, "Gonder for Des Moines at-Large". But fate places us here, and now. I am interested in starting here, and using our small, comfortable city as a feasible sensibly-sized place to put into practice and experimentation the things millions of people are learning in their own small, comfortable hometowns around the nation and the world. Never before have we been able to communicate so effortlessly. (I heard recently that a fifteen year old with a smart phone has at his fingers more information than was available to the President of the United States just fifteen years ago. True? I don't know, but it seems plausible.) All that communication should help us keep from making the same mistakes that other cities have made.
It is in that spirit that I offer this information from a not-too-cutting-edge form of communication. This is from Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser, Copyright Edward Glaeser, Penguin Press, 2011:
Too many officials in troubled cities wrongly imagine that they can lead their city back to its former glories with some massive construction project--a new stadium or light rail system, a convention center, or a housing project. With very few exceptions, no public policy can stem the tidal forces of urban change. We mustn't ignore the needs of the poor people who live in the Rust Belt, but public policy should help poor people, not poor places.
Shiny new real estate may dress up a declining city, but it doesn't solve its underlying problems. The hallmark of declining cities is that they have too much housing and infrastructure relative to the strength of their economies. With all that supply of structure and so little demand, it makes no sense to use public money to build more supply. (emphasis added)The folly of building-centric urban renewal reminds us that cities aren't structures; cities are people.
Again, I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of Bobo Platz, but I have difficulty seeing how this plan recognizes that "cities aren't structures, cities are people."
To be continued...
I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of the project.
I am a proponent of a more densely populated New Albany. I am a proponent of a city which thoughtfully and conscientiously uses its paid-for infrastructure to build a more environmentally responsible forward looking city. Such a city can grow responsibly and in such a way that future generations can see a future here, not simply a starting point on the way to there.
New Albany, as cities go, is pretty average for its size. It has little to exploit, little to differentiate it from any of the thousands of similarly situated cities of comparable size around the country. It matters, really, only to us. Under different circumstances, this blog could as easily be called, "Gonder for Des Moines at-Large". But fate places us here, and now. I am interested in starting here, and using our small, comfortable city as a feasible sensibly-sized place to put into practice and experimentation the things millions of people are learning in their own small, comfortable hometowns around the nation and the world. Never before have we been able to communicate so effortlessly. (I heard recently that a fifteen year old with a smart phone has at his fingers more information than was available to the President of the United States just fifteen years ago. True? I don't know, but it seems plausible.) All that communication should help us keep from making the same mistakes that other cities have made.
It is in that spirit that I offer this information from a not-too-cutting-edge form of communication. This is from Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser, Copyright Edward Glaeser, Penguin Press, 2011:
Too many officials in troubled cities wrongly imagine that they can lead their city back to its former glories with some massive construction project--a new stadium or light rail system, a convention center, or a housing project. With very few exceptions, no public policy can stem the tidal forces of urban change. We mustn't ignore the needs of the poor people who live in the Rust Belt, but public policy should help poor people, not poor places.
Shiny new real estate may dress up a declining city, but it doesn't solve its underlying problems. The hallmark of declining cities is that they have too much housing and infrastructure relative to the strength of their economies. With all that supply of structure and so little demand, it makes no sense to use public money to build more supply. (emphasis added)The folly of building-centric urban renewal reminds us that cities aren't structures; cities are people.
Again, I am neither a proponent nor an opponent of Bobo Platz, but I have difficulty seeing how this plan recognizes that "cities aren't structures, cities are people."
To be continued...
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
It Coulda Been a Showplace, Part 1
The Germans, or at the time the West Germans,were especially devastated by President Kennedy's assassination. Just days after the tragedy in Dallas, they renamed a famous public square after the fallen hero, and commemorated John F. Kennedy Platz.
To my young ear, one unexposed to the German language,it sounded decidedly odd and a bit nefarious: "John F. Kennedy plots to do what?"
Many years later I was day dreaming of how I should deploy my winnings from a particularly large Power Ball pot, $200 million, I think. My active fantasy center provided for me a fully-formed gift to my hometown, along with the prospect of instant, altruistic, immortality.
The double-deck Municipal Parking Garage on the south side of Main Street, between Pearl and State Streets, was perhaps still functional but, and I believe honestly, in a state of "park-at-your-own-risk" decrepitude.
Downtown's current renaissance was still unrealized, yet widely longed-for.
My fantasy plan was to acquire the garage property from the City for very little money, and simply a promise to build something transformational for my hometown.
A plaza would slope gently upwards from Main Street to the top of the flood wall. The concrete plaza would serve as the roof to shops and restaurants built below. People walking down Pearl or the alley next to the South Side Inn would see numerous store fronts at street level. Restaurants could have beer gardens and patios on the plaza. I never noodled out the logistics of tables, chairs, and drivers sharing plaza space with cars. I just knew people like to eat and drink outside and look at the river.
As luck would have it, I had no luck. No luck, no dough. No dough, no go.
Thus was New Albany deprived the beneficence I hoped to deliver it.
Alas,I never built Gonder Platz.
So, here we are years later still, and now the question: whither Bobo Platz?
To be continued...
To my young ear, one unexposed to the German language,it sounded decidedly odd and a bit nefarious: "John F. Kennedy plots to do what?"
Many years later I was day dreaming of how I should deploy my winnings from a particularly large Power Ball pot, $200 million, I think. My active fantasy center provided for me a fully-formed gift to my hometown, along with the prospect of instant, altruistic, immortality.
The double-deck Municipal Parking Garage on the south side of Main Street, between Pearl and State Streets, was perhaps still functional but, and I believe honestly, in a state of "park-at-your-own-risk" decrepitude.
Downtown's current renaissance was still unrealized, yet widely longed-for.
My fantasy plan was to acquire the garage property from the City for very little money, and simply a promise to build something transformational for my hometown.
A plaza would slope gently upwards from Main Street to the top of the flood wall. The concrete plaza would serve as the roof to shops and restaurants built below. People walking down Pearl or the alley next to the South Side Inn would see numerous store fronts at street level. Restaurants could have beer gardens and patios on the plaza. I never noodled out the logistics of tables, chairs, and drivers sharing plaza space with cars. I just knew people like to eat and drink outside and look at the river.
As luck would have it, I had no luck. No luck, no dough. No dough, no go.
Thus was New Albany deprived the beneficence I hoped to deliver it.
Alas,I never built Gonder Platz.
So, here we are years later still, and now the question: whither Bobo Platz?
To be continued...
Monday, April 4, 2011
Robert Kennedy in Indianapolis, April 4, 1968: "We have to make an effort..."
Imagine such a statesmanlike perfomance from any of the national political figures astride the stage today.
Then consider all that we have lost.
Peace.
Then consider all that we have lost.
Peace.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Brake or Gas?
I recently had occasion to spend a lot of time at Baptist East Hospital in Louisville. It is a large hospital on a sprawling campus. While walking about 1/4 mile from my car to the hospital, it hit me that we, the public, the citizens, are asked to make accommodation to the desires of developers, or other profit-centered parties.
Why must a hospital be so large? Is that the best way to deliver quality health care, or is it the most efficient way to maximize profit? Is a sixteen screen megaplex the best venue to showcase movies, or it the best way to squeeze a few more bucks out of a diminished workforce asked to handle theaters on a spoke and wheel system? Is the shopping mall the epitome of choice, or is it a capitulation to developers who wish to reorder society in a way that benefits them while allowing the old, original commerce centers to deteriorate? Does the old deteriorating commerce center hurt the mall developer in any way, or does its deterioration serve to reinforce the decision to move farther out from the sinking ship of trade?
In each of these examples, with which all Americans are familiar, we can see that large developments do, in fact, deliver some benefits, but they do so at quite a cost. The success of these large ventures is built upon a sturdy foundation of costs shifted from the developer, the owner, the schemer, onto the citizens of the host communities. These shifted costs are sometimes referred to as externalities. Externalities are imposed upon the commons, that which we by right of our citizenship or residence own and share in common with our fellow citizens or neighbors--air, water, open land, places or things too big to be hauled in, tied down or titled with the aid of an enviable checkbook.
And when, or before, this cost shift occurs the clarion call is jobs, prosperity, and growth. Such a compelling case is made that few can resist the pull of the grand project. But with each grand project we must try to assess the plans, the schemes, the dreams, against the needs of the entire community. Is a reach for the brass ring an expansion of that which benefits the most citizens, or is it another example of a community forced to dance to the tempting tune of developers whose intentions may be good, but whose plans will cause disruption to slower, smarter growth?
For years now the United States has been enthralled by movement toward the horizon. Without the myth of the limitless horizon, Westerns could never have been made. Here, in our own microcosm, we have been to the horizon, it's just a little ways out State Street in one direction and a about the same out Grant Line and Charlestown Roads in other directions. We need to move toward the horizon alright, but it's a place to search for possibilities to improve what we have. How can we take the infrastructure bequeathed to us and save it, improve it and hand it to those who follow us? The answer is not always the next big thing. It may well be many, many, small, good things we do to improve life in this small city for the greatest number of its citizens.
Why must a hospital be so large? Is that the best way to deliver quality health care, or is it the most efficient way to maximize profit? Is a sixteen screen megaplex the best venue to showcase movies, or it the best way to squeeze a few more bucks out of a diminished workforce asked to handle theaters on a spoke and wheel system? Is the shopping mall the epitome of choice, or is it a capitulation to developers who wish to reorder society in a way that benefits them while allowing the old, original commerce centers to deteriorate? Does the old deteriorating commerce center hurt the mall developer in any way, or does its deterioration serve to reinforce the decision to move farther out from the sinking ship of trade?
In each of these examples, with which all Americans are familiar, we can see that large developments do, in fact, deliver some benefits, but they do so at quite a cost. The success of these large ventures is built upon a sturdy foundation of costs shifted from the developer, the owner, the schemer, onto the citizens of the host communities. These shifted costs are sometimes referred to as externalities. Externalities are imposed upon the commons, that which we by right of our citizenship or residence own and share in common with our fellow citizens or neighbors--air, water, open land, places or things too big to be hauled in, tied down or titled with the aid of an enviable checkbook.
And when, or before, this cost shift occurs the clarion call is jobs, prosperity, and growth. Such a compelling case is made that few can resist the pull of the grand project. But with each grand project we must try to assess the plans, the schemes, the dreams, against the needs of the entire community. Is a reach for the brass ring an expansion of that which benefits the most citizens, or is it another example of a community forced to dance to the tempting tune of developers whose intentions may be good, but whose plans will cause disruption to slower, smarter growth?
For years now the United States has been enthralled by movement toward the horizon. Without the myth of the limitless horizon, Westerns could never have been made. Here, in our own microcosm, we have been to the horizon, it's just a little ways out State Street in one direction and a about the same out Grant Line and Charlestown Roads in other directions. We need to move toward the horizon alright, but it's a place to search for possibilities to improve what we have. How can we take the infrastructure bequeathed to us and save it, improve it and hand it to those who follow us? The answer is not always the next big thing. It may well be many, many, small, good things we do to improve life in this small city for the greatest number of its citizens.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Joe, Good to Hear From You
A tip of the hat to Vice President Biden for recognizing the importance of unions to the middle class of this nation.
Further, he recognizes that the Republican strategy of dismantling unions is not simply a path to efficiency in the workplace nor a necessary step toward greater competitiveness, old chestnuts of G.O.P. orthodoxy; it is a frontal assault on the Democratic Party. It is raw, political, bare-knuckle, thuggery.
Further, he recognizes that the Republican strategy of dismantling unions is not simply a path to efficiency in the workplace nor a necessary step toward greater competitiveness, old chestnuts of G.O.P. orthodoxy; it is a frontal assault on the Democratic Party. It is raw, political, bare-knuckle, thuggery.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Today There is no News From the Politburo, But You May Wish to Read Below or Between
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Thursday, March 10, 2011
Class Warfare? You Betcha
All scenes are from March 10, 2011 at the Capitol in Indianapolis. I heard an estimate of 32,000 in attendance.
I can't figure out the techniques of getting these pictures loaded properly. So, some are duplicates, and my picture should not be at the top of the list. Besides, it was too windy to wear my hairpiece.
Otherwise, it was a powerful show of force by a lot of people whose Man ain't Mitch. Hopefully those who attended are energized and imbued with a fairly long term memory.
Fool me once...
I can't figure out the techniques of getting these pictures loaded properly. So, some are duplicates, and my picture should not be at the top of the list. Besides, it was too windy to wear my hairpiece.
Otherwise, it was a powerful show of force by a lot of people whose Man ain't Mitch. Hopefully those who attended are energized and imbued with a fairly long term memory.
Fool me once...
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Divide and Conquer
Below is a video of a visit by filmmaker Michael Moore to the on-going citizens' rights protest in Madison, Wisconsin.
Make no mistake, what happens there will affect us here, for better or for worse.
It is easy to feel that we are constrained by the limitations of our economy. This sea change in the American economy has its roots in the Reagan administration when air traffic controllers were busted out of their union. It continued through the Clinton administration as unbalanced trade agreements shifted American jobs to third world sweat shops. It is felt now as those factories, that used to make goods for domestic consumption shut down in favor of foreign manufacturers, are removed from the tax rolls.
Right wing taxaphobe Grover Norquist famously said, "I don't want to kill government, I want to shrink it to the size we can drown it in a bathtub." This is what it looks like in Norquist's bathtub.
As Lincoln proclaimed, ours is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. By the great man's logic, we are in the bathtub.
It is we who must pull the stopper.
Along the same lines, Jon Stewart shines a brilliant light on the hypocrisy used to divide us from our fellow citizens. Fox News is simply a tool of the radical Republicans, aka teabaggers.
Make no mistake, what happens there will affect us here, for better or for worse.
It is easy to feel that we are constrained by the limitations of our economy. This sea change in the American economy has its roots in the Reagan administration when air traffic controllers were busted out of their union. It continued through the Clinton administration as unbalanced trade agreements shifted American jobs to third world sweat shops. It is felt now as those factories, that used to make goods for domestic consumption shut down in favor of foreign manufacturers, are removed from the tax rolls.
Right wing taxaphobe Grover Norquist famously said, "I don't want to kill government, I want to shrink it to the size we can drown it in a bathtub." This is what it looks like in Norquist's bathtub.
As Lincoln proclaimed, ours is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. By the great man's logic, we are in the bathtub.
It is we who must pull the stopper.
Along the same lines, Jon Stewart shines a brilliant light on the hypocrisy used to divide us from our fellow citizens. Fox News is simply a tool of the radical Republicans, aka teabaggers.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
These Blind Mice, These Blind Mice, See How They're Spun, See How They're Spun
I didn't draw the cartoon above,the credit is printed below the drawing. Nor did I make up the joke below; I heard it on the radio and can't attribute it to anyone specifically....
A union worker, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table.
In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it.
The CEO reaches across the table, takes 11 cookies, looks at the Tea
Partier and says:
"Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie."
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Open Letter to Ed Clere
After my blood pressure ebbed a bit I sent the following letter to our State Representative, Ed Clere.
I know the man a little and I cannot believe he would be a party (possible pun) to such dangerous, irresponsible nonsense.
I would urge anyone who agrees to let Rep. Clere know how you feel.
Link to story
Dear Rep. Clere:
Regarding S.B. 292, can this possibly be why you chose to enter politics?
I have not seen the so-called logic behind this bizarre capitulation to a lunatic fringe.
Just imagine you are at a cafe in Paris and you read this in the International Herald Tribune. Would you believe it?
Do you want innocent people conducting business in any courthouse, or the workers in those buildings, subjected to the violence which will follow from such wanton pandering.
I will personally sponsor a resolution in the New Albany (your home) Common Council in opposition to this insanity.
And, I further hope that the law, if passed, soon faces a court challenge.
I know the man a little and I cannot believe he would be a party (possible pun) to such dangerous, irresponsible nonsense.
I would urge anyone who agrees to let Rep. Clere know how you feel.
Link to story
Dear Rep. Clere:
Regarding S.B. 292, can this possibly be why you chose to enter politics?
I have not seen the so-called logic behind this bizarre capitulation to a lunatic fringe.
Just imagine you are at a cafe in Paris and you read this in the International Herald Tribune. Would you believe it?
Do you want innocent people conducting business in any courthouse, or the workers in those buildings, subjected to the violence which will follow from such wanton pandering.
I will personally sponsor a resolution in the New Albany (your home) Common Council in opposition to this insanity.
And, I further hope that the law, if passed, soon faces a court challenge.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Look for the Union Label
I recently read about a guy who cries a lot. I believe the article pivoted off a discussion of John Boehner and his tendency to turn on the water works at the drop of a hat or the ribbon cutting at a Jiffy Lube. I'm not really like that, although I am prone to sentimentality. Perhaps I could be in a television show to rival CBS's hit, The Mentalist. My version would be called The Sentimentalist.
I say all that because I must confess that I kind of choke up when I see the commercial below. It is one of a series that was popular long ago in a different land. Leaving aside the obvious stylistic shortcomings in the wardrobe featured in the ad, it plucks my sentimental string because it evokes a time when people had faith in the ability of this nation to support itself and provide for its people. It recalls a time when we could believe that we were all in this together. We worked in different jobs but what one produced depended on what his neighbor produced or sold and so on around the circle.
The people in this ad were not likely "important people" in their communities. They were simply the backbone of the nation. They lived and worked in a time when the truth was still clear that capitalism serves democracy and not the reverse of that.
Come Monday, the Indiana General Assembly will consider action to place our state into the illustrious company of such states as Mississippi and South Carolina in becoming a Right to Work state. Although Mitch Daniels doesn't want the legislation to advance, that stance is for tactical reasons only. It in no way should be seen as the governor's support for his citizens' workplace rights. In rounding up the usual suspects of those who support the bill, look no further than the same group that opposed health care reform; the Indiana Chamber of Commerce supports the legislation. Really, why would the Chamber of Commerce concern itself with workers' rights? It is more concerned with owners' rights.
Me? I'm going to crack open a Union Made Blue Ribbon and watch the I.L.G.W.U. ad one more time. Where's my hanky?
I say all that because I must confess that I kind of choke up when I see the commercial below. It is one of a series that was popular long ago in a different land. Leaving aside the obvious stylistic shortcomings in the wardrobe featured in the ad, it plucks my sentimental string because it evokes a time when people had faith in the ability of this nation to support itself and provide for its people. It recalls a time when we could believe that we were all in this together. We worked in different jobs but what one produced depended on what his neighbor produced or sold and so on around the circle.
The people in this ad were not likely "important people" in their communities. They were simply the backbone of the nation. They lived and worked in a time when the truth was still clear that capitalism serves democracy and not the reverse of that.
Come Monday, the Indiana General Assembly will consider action to place our state into the illustrious company of such states as Mississippi and South Carolina in becoming a Right to Work state. Although Mitch Daniels doesn't want the legislation to advance, that stance is for tactical reasons only. It in no way should be seen as the governor's support for his citizens' workplace rights. In rounding up the usual suspects of those who support the bill, look no further than the same group that opposed health care reform; the Indiana Chamber of Commerce supports the legislation. Really, why would the Chamber of Commerce concern itself with workers' rights? It is more concerned with owners' rights.
Me? I'm going to crack open a Union Made Blue Ribbon and watch the I.L.G.W.U. ad one more time. Where's my hanky?
Friday, February 18, 2011
On Wisconsin
Below is a video of former senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin discussing the current resistance to the tactics of that state's governor, Scott Walker, tactics which must be called union busting.
The same tactics are being used by Republican governors in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ohio and even Indiana to varying degrees. Our Man Mitch is intent upon routing out teachers' unions to clear the path for his initiative on charter schools.
The assault is not always carried out through union busting. Sometimes it is a consolidation of power into the chief executive or his corporate allies. But the effect and the intent is clear: take power away from those who support Democratic candidates and traditional Democratic party values. Focus on the bogus. Highlight issues such as:
*the protection of marriage,
* the undue influence of unions, which comprise eight to ten per cent of the work force, but a significant share of Democratic boots on the ground in political campaigns,
* the shackles that hobble corporations such as effective environmental regulations,
* debunking climate change as a real threat
* touting the inefficiency of local government as an impediment to running government "like a business".
As the petite Chief Executive, from his camp along the White River, continues his war against his citizens' rights, in pursuit perhaps of higher office, I will not be one of his foot soldiers aiding those efforts. He may in fact succeed at abrogating workers' rights, building a national political agenda and dismantling local government, but he will do it with others' help.
We need to heed the lessons from Wisconsin as that war heats up in our own borders.
The same tactics are being used by Republican governors in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ohio and even Indiana to varying degrees. Our Man Mitch is intent upon routing out teachers' unions to clear the path for his initiative on charter schools.
The assault is not always carried out through union busting. Sometimes it is a consolidation of power into the chief executive or his corporate allies. But the effect and the intent is clear: take power away from those who support Democratic candidates and traditional Democratic party values. Focus on the bogus. Highlight issues such as:
*the protection of marriage,
* the undue influence of unions, which comprise eight to ten per cent of the work force, but a significant share of Democratic boots on the ground in political campaigns,
* the shackles that hobble corporations such as effective environmental regulations,
* debunking climate change as a real threat
* touting the inefficiency of local government as an impediment to running government "like a business".
As the petite Chief Executive, from his camp along the White River, continues his war against his citizens' rights, in pursuit perhaps of higher office, I will not be one of his foot soldiers aiding those efforts. He may in fact succeed at abrogating workers' rights, building a national political agenda and dismantling local government, but he will do it with others' help.
We need to heed the lessons from Wisconsin as that war heats up in our own borders.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Blue Days
Yesterday my wife and I set out to see the Impressionism exhibit at the Speed Museum. It was a cold, dreary day, and looking at the magnificent outdoor scenes through the softened eyes of Monet and Pissarro seemed a good antidote to winter weather. On the way, we deviated from the direct path to look at the Dead Block Walking of the so-called Iron Quarter along Louisville's Main Street. We both expressed our consternation that a visionless dunderhead should hold the fate of such wonderful structures in his greedy hands. But he was aided and abetted by the newly elected Mayor of Louisville, so what could we do about it other than grouse? So, on to the museum.
While enjoying the paintings, the image of the buildings at the Iron Quarter drifted through my head as I realized that these artifacts on the wall before me, from the late 19th Century, are contemporaneous with many of the built artifacts slated for demolition.
A common theme of many of the paintings, at least to me, is the harmony of man and his environment. Field workers are shown drawing sustenance from the earth in an idealized vision. While right here in River City at the same time the earth's bounty was forged and shaped into structures to help that city grow and prosper. Both the paintings and the buildings are the valuable product of a time when talent, skill and sweat were dedicated not simply to function, but to the outward expression of an inner desire to bring beauty into daily life. Those statements are real and have stood the test of time. Those expressions should be allowed to speak to us today and to our children tomorrow, rather than grace landfills with their erstwhile beauty.
To give Louisville's mayor his due, he has crafted a solution to the impasse over the Iron Quarter which might save the facades of the structures. Such a tepid half measure is equivalent to placing a loved one's bleached skull on the mantelpiece to preserve and recollect "that lovely smile". It truly only reminds us of what we've lost.
While the decision to raze the significant concentration of iron-front buildings in Louisville jeopardizes the city's claim to be the "number two repository of iron facaded buildings in the U.S.", behind only New York, a much larger place, by the way. The razing allows our neighbor's riverfront to make room for more structures like the arena, which from the Clark Bridge to me, seems to resemble nothing so much as an answering machine or perhaps a wireless router.
And what of those who came before, and those who will follow? Do we stand arrogantly in the now to say that we will erase what has been, because we promise something aesthetically superior? Do we lack the skill and the imagination to take what our forebears have left us and keep it well, while building our own for those who follow us? Do we follow the dictates of good stewardship, both historic and environmental? Or, do we simply replace, because that is what we do to shuffle money around?
Gazing at the dreamy scenes hung on museum walls, I was struck by the fact that what we see there is static. It is a beautiful snapshot produced by skilled hands, it represents an impression filtered through what we now might see as a loving eye. While stasis is not possible, nor even desirable, can't we filter what we do today through a more loving eye to enrich tomorrow?
If one wonders what does this have to do with New Albany it is this: while Louisville, owing to its sheer size versus New Albany may have more extant structures of architectural significance, the same forces which treaten architectural treasures in Louisville threaten what we have left in New Albany. In fact, because New Albany has a smaller cache of significant structures and neighborhoods, it is even more important to look upon those buildings and areas with a loving eye.
Painting: Hay Makers Resting by Camile Pissarro
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Bridge Too Far
Stumler says he wants to run an issues-oriented campaign. One of the issues he’s concerned with is the Ohio River Bridges Project. He says he supports current efforts to make the project smaller and less expensive, but thinks they should go further.“
I would kind of like to, say, hold off on the downtown bridge. Maybe redo part of Spaghetti Junction to make it more drivable, less problems,” he says. “I just don’t know if we should burden ourselves with that much money. It probably, for sure, in the future will be needed. But maybe we should build it and pay for it when it’s needed.” (emphasis in both instances added)
--Newly minted Democratic Mayoral Candidate Irv Stumler, as quoted by WFPL's Gabe Bullard at yesterday's coming out party.
______________________________________
Those are welcome words as the imbroglio over the Bridges Project enters a new phase. ALL local governments have spoken against the concept of tolling existing bridges as a means of funding the bloated Two Bridges Plan which occupies center stage in the debate.
The larger question is one which Mr. Stumler's answer suggests, "What is the preferred shape of our regional transportation plan, of our footprint on the regional environment for now and for countless years in the future?"
Tolls are a monetary inconvenience and a threat to today's businesses which hope to thrive in a regional economy. By questioning the very need of a Downtown Bridge, Irv Stumler broadens the debate to look at the environmental impact of a second bridge. Taking tolls off the table is a huge step, but it is only the first step, and a small one at that, in right-sizing this over-inflated boondoggle.
Not only will the Downtown Bridge take a scythe to our neighbor's (Jeffersonville) thriving, though-still-nascent riverfront renaissance (please excuse the alliteration). It will also place us regionally on a path which is at odds with responsible environmental stewardship. To look for other paths, as Mr. Stumler has done, is to glimpse the better way for a 21st Century metropolitan area thirsting for cohesion and its attendant benefits.
If the default position is not obeisance to automobile commuting, it must be something else. And that something else is, hopefully, a modern incarnation of the long lost interurban system which thrived (throve is correct but a tad pedantic) here in the pre-war era. The reason this throwback transportation model is, in fact, forward-looking can be summed up in two words--River Ridge. That goose along the Ohio and Highway 62 is perched upon a nest and ready to lay dozens of golden eggs. Those eggs will best be accessed by rail for freight and while we're at it, why not upgrade to a commuter service which can responsibly and efficiently transport workers to the sprawling facility? Such a model of efficient transportation, rational planning, and environmental responsibility, is one step we can take regionally to differentiate our community from the many other communities also hoping to grow their economy. Mr. Stumler's challenge, as stated in the phrase,"we should go further" claims the high ground in this debate.
I'm not a student of military campaigns, but I think a tenet of that school would be to hold the high ground when once you have occupied it. Thank you, Irv Stumler.
Something related to what Mr. Stumler has done is alluded to in an article by author Bill McKibben. In the article reprinted on Truthout, McKibben talks about the intrinsic value of The Commons, that's what Woody Guthrie referred to when he sang, "This land is your land..."
Irv Stumler's comments about the inappropriate Two Bridge plan came to mind when I read McKibben's words,
These things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes. (emphasis added)
Stumler rightly sees the threat to the commons which the Two Bridge plan represents. I welcome Irv Stumler into the political arena and wholeheartedly pledge to help him fulfill his pledge to stop the Downtown Bridge.
I would kind of like to, say, hold off on the downtown bridge. Maybe redo part of Spaghetti Junction to make it more drivable, less problems,” he says. “I just don’t know if we should burden ourselves with that much money. It probably, for sure, in the future will be needed. But maybe we should build it and pay for it when it’s needed.” (emphasis in both instances added)
--Newly minted Democratic Mayoral Candidate Irv Stumler, as quoted by WFPL's Gabe Bullard at yesterday's coming out party.
______________________________________
Those are welcome words as the imbroglio over the Bridges Project enters a new phase. ALL local governments have spoken against the concept of tolling existing bridges as a means of funding the bloated Two Bridges Plan which occupies center stage in the debate.
The larger question is one which Mr. Stumler's answer suggests, "What is the preferred shape of our regional transportation plan, of our footprint on the regional environment for now and for countless years in the future?"
Tolls are a monetary inconvenience and a threat to today's businesses which hope to thrive in a regional economy. By questioning the very need of a Downtown Bridge, Irv Stumler broadens the debate to look at the environmental impact of a second bridge. Taking tolls off the table is a huge step, but it is only the first step, and a small one at that, in right-sizing this over-inflated boondoggle.
Not only will the Downtown Bridge take a scythe to our neighbor's (Jeffersonville) thriving, though-still-nascent riverfront renaissance (please excuse the alliteration). It will also place us regionally on a path which is at odds with responsible environmental stewardship. To look for other paths, as Mr. Stumler has done, is to glimpse the better way for a 21st Century metropolitan area thirsting for cohesion and its attendant benefits.
If the default position is not obeisance to automobile commuting, it must be something else. And that something else is, hopefully, a modern incarnation of the long lost interurban system which thrived (throve is correct but a tad pedantic) here in the pre-war era. The reason this throwback transportation model is, in fact, forward-looking can be summed up in two words--River Ridge. That goose along the Ohio and Highway 62 is perched upon a nest and ready to lay dozens of golden eggs. Those eggs will best be accessed by rail for freight and while we're at it, why not upgrade to a commuter service which can responsibly and efficiently transport workers to the sprawling facility? Such a model of efficient transportation, rational planning, and environmental responsibility, is one step we can take regionally to differentiate our community from the many other communities also hoping to grow their economy. Mr. Stumler's challenge, as stated in the phrase,"we should go further" claims the high ground in this debate.
I'm not a student of military campaigns, but I think a tenet of that school would be to hold the high ground when once you have occupied it. Thank you, Irv Stumler.
Something related to what Mr. Stumler has done is alluded to in an article by author Bill McKibben. In the article reprinted on Truthout, McKibben talks about the intrinsic value of The Commons, that's what Woody Guthrie referred to when he sang, "This land is your land..."
Irv Stumler's comments about the inappropriate Two Bridge plan came to mind when I read McKibben's words,
These things we share are called commons, which simply means they belong to all of us. Commons can be gifts of nature—such as fresh water, wilderness and the airwaves—or the products of social ingenuity like the Internet, parks, artistic traditions, or the public health service. But today much of our common wealth is under threat from those hungry to ruin it or take it over for selfish, private purposes. (emphasis added)
Stumler rightly sees the threat to the commons which the Two Bridge plan represents. I welcome Irv Stumler into the political arena and wholeheartedly pledge to help him fulfill his pledge to stop the Downtown Bridge.
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